I almost always upgrade Zergling speed after Lair vs. Terran. It forces the Terran to think twice before being aggressive, keeps him in his base sometimes, and I often don't have to build any sunken colonies.

The strategy of getting ling speed is suggested by the two following Starcraft theorems.

1) The best defense is a good offense.
2) Army power decreases with distance.

I build sunken colonies as a last resort, if I lost all my lings or I screwed up my economy too much to afford using larvae for a dozen lings. They don't move, and all they do is force the Terran from attacking your base.

Speedlings weakly dominate sunkens because they can achieve the same effect (marine+med don't attack you) but you can do more (like counterattack or harass). The only downside is that instead of using 3 drones to make sunkens, you need 6 larvae (which could have gone to 6 drones). But for the reason I mentioned, I almost always get speedlings because of their mobility.

The second point illustrates that if I have lings, I'll be able to camp in front of his base with them before he can camp in front of mine. By the time he pushes me all the way back, I'll have mutas and his army will be useless. Keeping a distance reduces the power of his marine+medic army.

Today I realized another benefit. Speedlings allow you to take advantage of greedy builds. Builds that, if you don't see it and deal with it when there's a timing window, will roll you over for sure later in the game. E.g.: Terran goes two engineering bay before academy for dual upgrades; Terran goes 1rax1fac1star for REALLY early Vessels.

Here's the recap of what happened. It's Destination, I'm Zerg, he's Terran, I'm at 5 o'clock.

My initial ovie is sent in a dumb direction.

Later, I am able to scout first his Starport.

At first, I think he is just going early Vessel. But then I see this.

He was gonna go early Valkyries, and there would be a timing window in which he'd only have one Valkyrie and a handful of marine and medic. If I left him alone, he'd skip making turrets. Valkyries are to turrets as lings are to sunkens. I couldn't let this happen.

I had ling speed. So I hatched about 6 more lings for a total of about 18.

As soon as I had 8 mutas or so, I go into his nat.

I knew that given his build, he could only have had a handful or marine+med and a Valk. I was confident in the efficiency of my build so that I could apply the substitution principle to the enemy -- you can't have everything; for everything extra you gain, there's something you lose. He sacrificed marine count for early Valkyries, and I was going to make him pay for it.

I trust myself and go in, killing about a dozen SCVs, doing severe damage. In retrospect, I think I could have done more damage by going into his main and attacking his Barracks.

That's pretty much the defining move of the game. The rest of the game is me trying to throw the game by getting constantly harassed. You wouldn't take away much from it. He keeps making small positive EV (expected value) moves, and I know it. He was coming back. I had been dealt an AK against his A8, but he was outplaying me little by little.

Each picture shows a different hatchery. At least 7 hatcheries were sniped throughout the game.

I had one final chance to set things straight. I went all-in on ultralisks and lings and shoved them in. Instantly, the tables turned and I was able to secure the win.

[BRAG]Check out his record. vooevoli[/BRAG]

Back to my point though -- my observation was that a dozen speedlings provide a very good hedge against a lot of greedy Terran builds.

Replay

New Zealand6138 Posts

March 24 2009 18:54 GMT

cool post, but please don't ever make poker analogies again.

inReacH

Sweden1612 Posts

March 24 2009 18:57 GMT

How on earth does he still have a full line of minerals at his main while yours are almost mined out completely (last picture)

CaucasianAsian

Korea (South)11596 Posts

March 24 2009 19:01 GMT

On March 25 2009 03:54 H wrote:
cool post, but please don't ever make poker analogies again.

I heard it was +EV to do so.

Tropics

United Kingdom1132 Posts

March 24 2009 19:01 GMT

im just curious as to how you went from wrecking his nat so early to almost losing the game

at that fight it looks like you've just killed all his mnm and you still have a group of lings and 8 mutas left, i dunno how it's even possible to come back from that

o_O

minus_human

4784 Posts

March 24 2009 19:01 GMT

isn't one supposed to like.. upgrade zergling speed by default after Lair?

New Zealand6138 Posts

March 24 2009 19:02 GMT

On March 25 2009 04:01 CaucasianAsian wrote:

Show nested quote +

I heard it was +EV to do so.

actually, it's just awkward as fuck and really dorky.

Tropics

United Kingdom1132 Posts

March 24 2009 19:02 GMT

On March 25 2009 03:57 inReacH wrote:
How on earth does he still have a full line of minerals at his main while yours are almost mined out completely (last picture)

because the last time he saw that min line they were full. Fog of war is on, you only have zerg's perspective.

koreasilver

9109 Posts

March 24 2009 19:16 GMT

Lingspeed after Lair is standard in TvZ.

FieryBalrog

United States1381 Posts

March 24 2009 19:21 GMT

#10

o_0 I get Lair first 100 gas, ling speed second 100 gas. I thought everyone did that.

P.S. Why do you hate lurkers

.gypsy

Canada689 Posts

March 24 2009 19:28 GMT

#11

12 speedling builds is usually very weak against strong terran builds, such as the ones that you may or may not have seen in Stylish's vods, also most Terrans arent retards that will die to standard 3 hatch 12 speedlings (not all-in) early game, and doing this sets you far back in comparison to most economic ZvT builds.