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It seems like every time I play ZvP and my opponent goes 2 gate zeal I always lose.
Loss to 2 gate zeals
This game I screwed up my 9 pool by accidently making 3 drones instead of 6 lings when pool finished. I accidentaly hit D instead of Z for some reason when selecting the larva. I'm guessing this is the reason I lost this one? Or could I have still come back to win it with better ling micro?
There are a couple of other replays I have to. One is a longer game that I lost. I think I know why. Because I didn't expo enough and had to few hatcheries, but if there is anything else I did wrong I'd appreciate if you could tell me.
http://www.battlereports.com/viewreplays.php?replaynum=32645
This one was just stupid playing by me. I'm pretty sure I know why I lost this one, but I'd still like a second and maybe third opinion ^^. Terrible macro. I didn't have enough hatcheries and not enough expansions. Also, I didn't tech to Hive when I had the chance  Also his storms killed me! How do you avoid losing so many untis to storms, because he isn't the only one that has destroyed me with them T_T
One last replay. I won this one but I feel like the only reason I did was because my opponent wasn't good. I think my macro was better in this one but not sure. So if anyone has any pointers on what I could've done better/did wrong in this one I'd appreciate it.
EDIT: Sorry about the to small of analysis thing. Hope this is better.
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Calgary25980 Posts
Read the strategy forum guidelines. You are supposed to give some analysis of your games. Your analysis is too small for three games. Either edit it and I will reopen, or repost it with proper analysis.
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Calgary25980 Posts
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To initially beat 2gate(I dont wanna go into how to beat a long game example of 2gate playing).. 12pool seems to be the easiest "counter" to it. Just 12pool, put the hat up at your nat before pool is done. make 6 lings and place sunken, you will be safe and have juke potential to some degree
if you 12hat and its a hardcore 2gate zeal + taking a few probes you are gonna have to try to put down 2-3 sunkens.. If you put down 3 you can cancel the first one when its about to die or finish building. Save up 3 larvae + 1 at your finished nat to make 8 lings and just keep making lings until the threat is quelled. Generally 2 sunkens with good placement will keep you very safe, you can make a few drones and put your 3rd hat up then try to figure out where to go from there..
9pool with the right positioning and setup can beat a 2gate proxy pretty easily, but if you happen to lose a couple lings carelessly and were trying to 9pool->expo nonstop zeal can put you away sometimes. so you really gotta minimize losses and get a sunk up at your nat.
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red.venom covered most of the typical play. sometimes, you don't have a chance to wait for that sunken at your nat to come up because his position is too close to you.
I just finished watching game 3 of Savior vs Stork, where Stork tried a 2 gate zeal. Savior pulled off some unorthodox play and exploited the weaknesses of the 2 gate build. I rarely 2 gate as protoss because of the vulnerability it seems to have. by staying aggressive on the protoss you can force him to split his forces, and not be able to commit so much force to his attacks on you.
link to game here, i was blown away by savior's play. http://teamliquid.net/tlpd/games/7850_sAviOr_vs_Stork
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yes watch that game savior vs stork.
for quite some time i've wondered y savior "abandoned" his 12 hatch build in zvp (he still uses it), and started using this 9 pool speedling build more frequently, that game vs stork provided the perfect answer, it allows zerg great flexibility to be extremely aggressive early on and allows super fast tech options. and as savior demonstrated in some of his macro games recently, the 9 pool speedling build actually transition into a typical macro build fairly easily and zerg doesn't lose much econ wise. i'm practicing that build to be my main zvp opening now.
BO is 9 ol, 9 pool, 10 gas, pull drones back to minerals when u get 100 gas for speed upgrade, and start ur expo immediately afterwards. depend on the protoss opening zerg can transition into any build, and the early speedlings prevent any probe scouts, forcing toss to fight blind until sair comes out.
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On November 01 2007 05:10 w3jjjj wrote:
yes watch that game savior vs stork.
for quite some time i've wondered y savior "abandoned" his 12 hatch build in zvp (he still uses it), and started using this 9 pool speedling build more frequently, that game vs stork provided the perfect answer, it allows zerg great flexibility to be extremely aggressive early on and allows super fast tech options. and as savior demonstrated in some of his macro games recently, the 9 pool speedling build actually transition into a typical macro build fairly easily and zerg doesn't lose much econ wise. i'm practicing that build to be my main zvp opening now.
BO is 9 ol, 9 pool, 10 gas, pull drones back to minerals when u get 100 gas for speed upgrade, and start ur expo immediately afterwards. depend on the protoss opening zerg can transition into any build, and the early speedlings prevent any probe scouts, forcing toss to fight blind until sair comes out.
I especially love his transition from 9 pool into 3 hatch bases. Recently, in two games (one against free in starleague and the second... can't remember right now) he transitioned into 5 extremely fast hatches so that he was economically ahead, technologically ahead, and reached the critical mass of mutas to take down any amount of archons and sairs. I only wish he had saved that to rape Bisu in the finals, but so far noone has had an answer.
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United States42693 Posts
If you 12 hatch 11 pool the below could be useful
On September 11 2007 05:18 Kwark wrote:
It's a micro issue in my opinion. The pivotal time (if you 12 hatch 11 pool) is when your first 8 lings hatch (you must save larva as pool completes). He'll have 1 zee, 2 probes and 2 zee almost there. You want to make 8 lings and start 2 creeps.
DO NOT ENGAGE
In a straight fight 3 zee 2 probe will rape your lings. Pure and simple. If you engage him he'll kill your lings and then kill the morphing sunks and you'll lose your nat. This is bad. However, if you don't engage then he'll kill the sunks. It's a thin line. Basically what you need to do is run round in circles with your lings staying near the morphing sunks but not engaging. If he commits to a sunk flank him. He won't be able to micro and his zees will lose and they'll be wasting attacks on the creep colony. If he doesn't commit you just wait for the sunk to finish. If he tries to run through you laugh as he's now in your main with 3 zee vs 10 or so ling (constant production) with his reinforcements cut off by sunks. Just dance your lings around near the morphing sunks and wait for him to commit. Let him chase your lings around, time is on your side. The only time you actually want to fight him is if he goes for the sunks in which case you can get a surround and slaughter him.
Also, search function is your friend.
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CA10828 Posts
savior's play was godly that game
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Thank you for all of the advice everyone! I'll be sure and try these strats soon ^^
EDIT: Just got done playing 2 ZvPs on ICCup and... it was bad T_T
He didn't try 2 gate zeal so I didn't get to try any of the counters you all have told me. In the first game he did a standard FE to sair to goon/zeal/temp. 2nd game was weird and the one I need advice on. He did a few Reaver drops that really hurt me (killed almost all my drones mining my main) and he did some unopposed sair harassing for a little bit at the start (killed 2 ovies before I could do anything about it). That's not the weird part. He went mass archons with attack up'd 3 times. I had 2 carapace ups and he still tore through my units, and I couldn't take any of his expos down because of his cannons. He also made a small army of DTs that he used to mess with me towards the end of the game (killed a good amount of hydra and lings before I got an ovie over there). I probably should've went defilers+swarm to counter the cannons and reduce archon damage, but I didn't think of that in game. Instead I stupidly went ultra ling when I didn't have near enough gas to do that build. I dunno what I was thinking. Anyways, I'll upload the rep of it tomorrow cause I could really use some advice on how to handle things like this, as well as how to prevent P from being able to roll over me late game in general.
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I'm a noob as well (D on iccup) so I don't want to give too specific advise and get flamed for being wrong.  I'll give advise based on personal experience vs P's
From what I've seen in your replays, is that you hold on too much to hydra/ling massing. You should really tech faster to ultra's, or lurkers for that matter.... I think I saw the first lurker at around 16 minutes in the game. You didn't seem to have much trouble establishing a good economy, that's good. Also, if you're still having trouble defending 2 gate rushes, (which I have as well) try 12 pool -> hatch, you'll have lings out way sooner which can discourage your opponent in pushing on with the rush, and it's easier to defend ofc.
Also try mass muta harass -> guardians (obviously not when he masses sairs) and see how that works out, anything to get a change from hydra/ling
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Here's the replay from yesterday that I was talking about in my last reply.
http://www.mediafire.com/?4xxdrnfn5y9
EDIT: Okay. I tried the counters to the 2 gate zeal you guys suggested and I lost every signle time. I guess my micro just sucks to horribly to have any hope of being able to win against a zeal rush
Also: How the hell do I avoid the Protoss destroying all my units with storm? I played someone in a BO3 and in the first two games he did the same thing. FE to mass army. He always had 5 or 6 HTs and he would use them to destroy about 90% of my army whenever I fought him. I tried flanking and completely surrounding him and he still owned me with storm. How the hell am I supposed to win against that?
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United States42693 Posts
On November 02 2007 04:38 Ancient_Rage wrote:Here's the replay from yesterday that I was talking about in my last reply. http://www.mediafire.com/?4xxdrnfn5y9EDIT: Okay. I tried the counters to the 2 gate zeal you guys suggested and I lost every signle time. I guess my micro just sucks to horribly to have any hope of being able to win against a zeal rush Also: How the hell do I avoid the Protoss destroying all my units with storm? I played someone in a BO3 and in the first two games he did the same thing. FE to mass army. He always had 5 or 6 HTs and he would use them to destroy about 90% of my army whenever I fought him. I tried flanking and completely surrounding him and he still owned me with storm. How the hell am I supposed to win against that?
Mobility. Attacking a protoss army head on is like attacking a meat grinder with your fist. Just don't do it.
Basically once you're in the late game you want about 10 sunkens at every base site with a load of lurks mixed in. Spend the rest of the time running cracklings past his army and ganking bases, dropping his base and killing his gates, dropping his expos with defiler and cracks and doing swarm gank etc. You don't actually fight his army until you have enough ultralisks to take on anything, you've already plagued him once or twice and you've got swarms ready. He's offering an unfair fight which involves him storming you then cleaning up. Counteroffer a fight involving your economy being about 5 times the size of his with relevent ultralisk spamming capacity.
The Reach vod from last night, if it's on the TLPD, is a fairly useful depiction of this. Reach won every battle and yet lost the war due to his poor mobility and map control. There was no point the zerg could kill his army but he could not break the zerg sunkens nor protect his bases.
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Eh, i remember a while back Day saying that you can pretty much 12pool vs anything, including a 2gate zeal build.
If your talking early game and you scout him fast enough, you can pop 2 sunks and stop making drones for lings after which you fend him off you can have anywhere from a 3-8 minute window since he's going to try to expand as soon as it fails, meaning you can power drones as well at take expo's and tech.
I know it's pretty generic but I find it works pretty well, Hell i just did it on icc today.
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practice ling micro, that's probably the most important thing vs heavy pressure from 2 gate. it also allows u to counter properly if given the chance. 8 lings vs 3 zealots is like the most classic micro topic ever. micro does make a huge difference, if executed correctly, 36 lings vs 14 zealots will leave 12 lings surviving the fight, if executed poorly, toss will end up heaving like 7 zealots surviving the fight, and it all happens within like 10 seconds....good micro is life and death, so go get some micro UMS maps, they do help.
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Hmm just an idea but you can try to sneak about 4/5 lings into his base and harass his probes to distract him xD
Try add happymanrun on West, we can do a series of games and I'll open 2 gater.
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Calgary25980 Posts
On November 02 2007 18:21 evanthebouncy! wrote:
Hmm just an idea but you can try to sneak about 4/5 lings into his base and harass his probes to distract him xD
Try add happymanrun on West, we can do a series of games and I'll open 2 gater.
If you do that you will never live the 2 Gate. You need every Zergling you can get until you have 3 Hatches or a Sunken.
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On November 02 2007 11:52 Kwark wrote:
Mobility. Attacking a protoss army head on is like attacking a meat grinder with your fist. Just don't do it.
Basically once you're in the late game you want about 10 sunkens at every base site with a load of lurks mixed in. Spend the rest of the time running cracklings past his army and ganking bases, dropping his base and killing his gates, dropping his expos with defiler and cracks and doing swarm gank etc. You don't actually fight his army until you have enough ultralisks to take on anything, you've already plagued him once or twice and you've got swarms ready. He's offering an unfair fight which involves him storming you then cleaning up. Counteroffer a fight involving your economy being about 5 times the size of his with relevent ultralisk spamming capacity.
The Reach vod from last night, if it's on the TLPD, is a fairly useful depiction of this. Reach won every battle and yet lost the war due to his poor mobility and map control. There was no point the zerg could kill his army but he could not break the zerg sunkens nor protect his bases.
Wow... why did I never think of that? I usually just try attacking the protoss army and not his base, but now I see that that is a stupid idea. One question though. How useful is swarm in ZvP? I've heard people say it's a waste of time but I don't see how. It severely reduces Archon damage, makes cannons useless, and makes it where the only real dangerous units(inside the swarm) are Zealots and DTs. Also, is plague like a must-have for late game ZvP?
w3jjjj do you have a link to a good micro UMS map? Or do you know a good site that I could find them on?
evanthebouncy: Alright I'll add you. What times are you usually on to game?
Thanks a lot for all the advice everyone! 
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Calgary25980 Posts
It's |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| good. But seriously, how do I answer that question? If you can use it and it won't affect your macro and unit control, definitely use it. If you're going to be bumbling around trying to cast Swarm while half your army is having a picnic, don't use it. Instead focus on unit control and macro.
If you're in the second category, you may want it for drops to help crack heavily guarded expansions. That's the only time I would use it if I sucked with Defilers.
Otherwise, if you can use them, get it asap. It tips the UltraLing vs ZealArchon battles way in your favour, and let's you engage heavily guarded expansions. Plague is also incredible on Zealots to help get the meat shields out of the way so you can surround and target Archons.
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Yeah I think I'll just use swarm for taking out expansions lol. Something I keep forgetting to ask: what is the timing for getting ups? After 2nd expo? 1st? Or is it just kind of a whenever you have enough minerals/gas thing?
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EPT
