EPT
Not meant as a balance post but more off a "zerg has developed new strategys and builds while protoss have not" This is coming from tons of practice games with my partners and pretty much reflect the views of both me and my Z practice partners.Introduction
In the start of SC2 it was believed that Zerg would be the master race due to the available mechanics of the race. Tons of Progamers joined the swarm in the games beta stages in strong belief of this theory, but alas it seemed it was not meant to be. Zerg did not turn out to be the dominating race, instead it was terran that took the lead and held it.
Today
Today i feel as if every Zerg player wants to strangle a kitten when they talk about the ZvP matchup and Idra foams at the mouth everytime it is mentioned. the concensus seems clear that ZvP is unwinnable for the zerg player. But is it really? Is it still as biased in Protosses favor as it was ~2 months ago? Myself as a protoss player feel that the odds have shifted and the Zerg now runs the show with greedy play that i am unable to punish.
Possible causes
The fast third
Protoss openings in PvZ have one thing in common in that the majority of them revolves around getting up a relatively fast expansion. The most popular choice of these openings on maps that allow it, seems to be FFE. It's a relative safe opening that nets the protoss player a very fast nexus and an early economy lead depending on how risky he wants to play it. In response to this Zergs have begun taking a fast third, herein lies the problem for the protoss player. With a FFE you cannot have any possible form of aggression out before about the 9~ mark depending on map distances which enables the zerg to get his third pretty uncontested.
What about...
I know alot of people are now saying "you´re high what about voidrays?" well first of all Voidrays are pretty hit or miss. And to my experience most of the zergs i play(esp my practice partners) are well aware of its threat and can deal with the void(s) relatively easy. Either by simply ignoring them for a time and keep droning, or by pre-emptively building more queens. Building more queens does not set a zerg back all that much since they generally want about 4 of them anyway, getting them now or later does not really affect them all that much as they do not use up larvae and excess queens can be put to use spreading creep.
So thwarting the voids delays the zerg slightly, but with no real cost to it. While for the protoss player a stargate opening does alot to your tech and gateway count, voids are far from cheap and the stargate steals alot of precious early gas, if the stargate is thwarted without inflicting some damage, the protoss is in a bad spot.
If the zerg is on the ball, he can drone up pretty well with or without stargate aggression from the P and hold off a push from the two base P with his superior econ or contest the Protoss third as he moves out to try and claim it.
What about...
Blink stalkers. The bane of every zerg player. Which to me looks more like the bane of every stubborn Zerg player, let me elaborate. Blink stalkers are fantastic vs roaches, hydras and mutas. Cost efficiently they are pretty terrible against lings as they do fairly bad damage to lings compared to roaches. Whenever my practice partner goes pure roach i will crush it with blink stalkers and constant warpin from 2/3 bases. Whenever he goes ~60% roaches ~40% lings he crushes me as the lings soak up tons of damage for the roaches and deal pretty ok damage themselves while giving the option of constricting paths to blink to and the ability to surround. What i mean by stubborn Zerg players are the "maybe i will hold it with a few more roaches" thinking type.
I could list more possible two base timing attacks from the protoss player but im not going to bother, my point is that if the Zerg is always on the ball, knows the timings in and out, gets an overseer inside the protoss base at the right times he can prepare and hold everything a two base protoss can throw at him. Does this take alot of effort and skill from the Zerg player? Hells yeah it does. Since he took a fast third he will not be as pumped with units as he would've been had he stuck on two bases for a little longer. Is he playing risky as in if he misses one type of timing attack hes gonna die? Hells yeah.
But when a Zerg player does pull this off, it looks like the protoss have no reply and is fighting an uphill battle for the remainder of the game. Zerg getting a third before a protoss has always been the case, but a Zerg getting his third up waaay before the protoss is something slightly new and something Protoss players have not found a good reply to as of yet.
The "meta game" changes - new viable units in the infestors and the baneling
soon
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/USg1H.png)
