EPTPerhaps a blog will help. I do try to take mental notes after I loose a game, even though 90% of the notes are "make more drones". As a gold zerg players, nothing hurts me more than seen my self with 10 works less than my T or P opponent at 9:00 mark. Quite sad, I know. So why not write down some of my thoughts here as a record which I can visit later to see my progression. This for now, will just be random thoughts that pops in my head, which is pretty obvious by now. So let's just briefly recap today's laddering experience.
1st game, lost. vs T, scouted 1 base mass hellions, like 10, had not enough lings, and not roaches at the time, put up some panic spines, block the ramp to main with queens, what was it, like 5 spines at the ramp, but the hellions squeezed through to the back of the natural and took it down. Good thing I had a 3rd up, doing ok economically, trapped all the hellions in my natural, and eventually kill them with roaches. can't remember much of the rest, but when the marine tank came after that, had no answer for it. No baneling nest, not enough lings, poop, lost that one.
1 thing to take a way: always leave a spine in the mineral line to cover all areas, could've saved the natural.
2nd game, lost, vs T, 43 min long game, defended his proxy 2 rax, lost 5 workers, decided to do a baneling bust counter while he's floating his raxes home, failed to enough dmg, realized that should've droned up instead, I was behind like 10 workers at that time, needless to say it was a downhill sprial from there. Managed to use ling bling infestor to hold off this 200/200 push, while I'm on 3 bases, and he was on 4. Some how scrapped up a few BLords and held off a bit longer. Bearly manage to bring up a 4th, while his drops pretty much finished my main. Watch the replay at the end was quite hilarious and sad at the same time, the Terran mined OUT 4 bases, while I'm still mining from my 2nd 3rd and 4th, LOL. Anyways, not even close this game.
1 thing to take away: always re-saturate bases with workers after repelling an attack, before counter attacking.
3rd game, lost, vs P, FFE on shattered temple, no fast 3rd for me, so dropped a macro hatch in main, scouted 4 gates, missed the other 3, lol. I'm not used to the 2 base 7 gate timing, been seen more P take a 3rd and go Colossus. So when the proxy pylons and stalks showed up, I had some roaches and 1 spine at the natural, broke the rocks to my third, and the hatch is making, my 2 base was saturated pretty well this game, thought I had enough to pump out roaches to defend this, but no. The mass stalkers with proxy reinforcement proved to be too much. At least the game was short.
1 thing to take away: FFE warpgate finishes around 8:00, if scout 6 to 7 gates, no robo or stargate, maybe try 4 spines at natural, and maybe third as well, start making army at 8:00, but must target to have at least 50 to 60 drones at that time. Oh yeah, this game, I over reacted with a zealot stalker polk, and made like 28 lings, with a spine at natural...tsk tsk tsk, gotta remain calm, make maybe 10, then back to make drones.
4th game, won, vs P, FFE on shakurus, kinda of slow opponent, like 7:00, only just started robo, didn't see many gates, 12:00, still no 3rd, not poking out, I'm drone pretty well on 3 bases, and massing roaches, ready for the 12 to 13 minute poke from Day9's wonderful teachings, to either kill him if he didn't make a lot of army, or to delay his third. Saw his 3rd go down around 13:00, forward ling saw mass zealot with sentries, encouraged me to make even more roaches, pushed out around 13 to 14 minute, 170 ish food, crushed his zealot sentry HT army, good thing HT just came out not too long, only like 2 storms, tanked it through. After that, killed the 3rd, going to spire, remax roaches, knock on this natural and won.
1 thing to take away: hmm...just realized that it's hard to learn stuff on a winning game. Ahhh yest, I remembered, instead of all roaches at 13 min, it would be better to mix in some hydras. If he had stargate tech instead of HT, I would be in a bit of trouble, as the only AA i had at the time was 1 queen and 1 spore at each base. So yes, target roach hydra mix at 12 to 13 min mark. Need to work hydra den timing. And also, took gas too late, early game, severe mineral over stock and no enough gas, no specific timing was noted, but need to pay more attention in the future.
5th game, won, vs Z, only played this one to burn all my bonus pool and to get back in top 8 in my division, also now only 6 wins away from my Hydra portrait. Sad I know, but these 2 factors have been motivating me well lately. Whatever works. Ever since I got so frustrated with ZvZ, and learnd the Tang's 42 speed ling semi all in transition into roach ling, that's what I've been doing for every ZvZ for the last a few weeks. It's working well at this level, win around 75% of the time. So not much to say about this one.
1 thing to take away: I'm still messing up the build order. This game was terrible, forgot my 2nd queen, AND forgot ling speed. what I like about this build is that it can literally tank though banelings with so much speed lings. Of course leaves you massively behind on drones if you don't do enough dmg. Oh well, it's working and I haven't even been able to execute it well. So I guess I will keep working on this build.
Wow, 5 ladder games in one sitting. Haven't done that for a long time. I just spent the last hour writing this. Hope this won't be a waste of time. See how long I can keep this up. Until next time...
(wow, almsot lost the entire thing due to session expired, note to self, always type in notepad first from now on)
Edit: grammar and typos
