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Obligatory self-competence notice: 1950 Zerg, opponents usually 2100-2300 rating.
Recently I get the feeling that between players of non-significant skill-gap, ZvZ is 100% luck based. By this I mean that the outcome of the game will, unless both pick the same BO, almost exclusively be decided by the two openings that the players chose to play.
There are basically these 4 openings:
Hatch first
6 Pool
Pool first with goal being roaches (exact BO varies)
Pool first with goal being ling/bling (exact BO varies)
The problem here is that, if you match up two of these openings and they're not the same, one of BOs will have such a big disadvantage to the other that the outcome of the game will largely depend on it.
For example:
Hatch first vs ling/bling opening: Hatch first will always win this, unless the hatch first players makes major, major mistakes (like letting all of his defense lings die to one bling etc.). The amount of lings and blings the attacker can produce is just not enough to break through the defense of spinecrawlers, queens and lings. Plus, on almost all maps and starting position combinations, the spawning pool of the hatch first player doesn't finish late enough for the attackers lings to do any damage before the defenders lings spawn out of their eggs.
In theory it's possible for the pool first player to adapt and expand himself, but this will result in a rather big economic disadvantage in the long run (remember: we're assuming players of non-significant skill gap)
But: 6pool (with spinecrawler rush) counters hatch first 100% (of course, again assuming that the 6 pool player doesn't make any major mistakes). 6 pool though will always lose to a properly defended ling/bling or roach BO.
The only case where it can be kind of even, depending on how good the two players react to their opponents, is the case of roach vs ling/bling. But even here, the ling/bling player will usually win, simply because he can scout the roach BO, get a little bit ahead in economy, and win the game this way. But here, like I said, even top players make the mistake of not reacting properly which then results in a more even game.
So here is my question: Do you feel the same about the matchup? And if not, why + what is the safest BO against everything that you can suggest?
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I can talk a bit about the Pool first vs Hatch first, since I play on the Pool first side and have been analyzing how to avoid falling behind. I'm still working on it, though, so don't be too surprised if this analysis is incomplete or has some errors in it.
The advantage of a sufficiently early Spawning Pool first is earlier Zerglings, and you have several extra larva after your first Inject finishes. The advantage of Hatchery first is money. If you go Pool first, you want to steer the game towards one where larva is more important than money.
A prime way to do this is to play a heavy Zergling (and possibly Baneling) game. Your opponent only really gets two options:
- He can go hard Zerglings / Banelings. This keeps his Drone count low, and extra Hatchery irrelevant.
- He can build Spine Crawlers. This increases his larva disadvantage and consumes his mineral advantage.
My instinct tells me that, in this way, it is possible for a pool first build (maybe 11 pool 11 over, or 9 over 12 pool) to secure equality if not an actual advantage over the Hatch first unless the map is too large.
Of course, this approach isn't for the faint of heart because you have to be constantly in your opponent's face without wasting lings, carefully tread the line of using your larvae advantage to keep a higher drone count (or a higher Zergling count if you think you can win a battle!), and be able to quickly switch gears to droning / teching when the time is right.
To summarize, I don't think Hatchery gets a relevant advantage unless it can start droning. If you can make it costly to hold the front while droning and switch gears yourself, you can gain advantage.
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Very interesting topic, I was thinking the same.
I don't know universal build for ZvZ, but you should understand that everytime your opponent does risky build (FE, 6 pool) he takes huge risk and his build probably won't work against other opponent. That means even if he wins vs. you, his ZvZ strategy is not versatile, while yours is more versatile if you, let's say, always go pool first even if you are in slight economy disadvantage vs. his hatch first.
Btw isn't it possible to throw FE if he FE just by scouting him?
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On November 16 2010 05:30 Hurkyl wrote:I can talk a bit about the Pool first vs Hatch first, since I play on the Pool first side and have been analyzing how to avoid falling behind. I'm still working on it, though, so don't be too surprised if this analysis is incomplete or has some errors in it. The advantage of a sufficiently early Spawning Pool first is earlier Zerglings, and you have several extra larva after your first Inject finishes. The advantage of Hatchery first is money. If you go Pool first, you want to steer the game towards one where larva is more important than money. A prime way to do this is to play a heavy Zergling (and possibly Baneling) game. Your opponent only really gets two options: - He can go hard Zerglings / Banelings. This keeps his Drone count low, and extra Hatchery irrelevant.
- He can build Spine Crawlers. This increases his larva disadvantage and consumes his mineral advantage.
My instinct tells me that, in this way, it is possible for a pool first build (maybe 11 pool 11 over, or 9 over 12 pool) to secure equality if not an actual advantage over the Hatch first unless the map is too large. Of course, this approach isn't for the faint of heart because you have to be constantly in your opponent's face without wasting lings, carefully tread the line of using your larvae advantage to keep a higher drone count (or a higher Zergling count if you think you can win a battle!), and be able to quickly switch gears to droning / teching when the time is right. To summarize, I don't think Hatchery gets a relevant advantage unless it can start droning. If you can make it costly to hold the front while droning and switch gears yourself, you can gain advantage.
This approach usually works against players who are unexperienced against good, constant aggression weighed out with decent drone production. The problem is (and I've experienced both sides of the problem) that the game will reach an unavoidable point where the hatch first player gains a big advantage because of his drone and larvae production.
If you play against a good player, he will not overcommit to defense, but not to economy either. In practice, this means that the player will go through a constant "ling/drone/ling/drone/ling/drone/ling/drone" cycle, with a few spinecrawlers (depending on the map 2 or three) thrown in at the beginning and everytime one goes down.
If you can somehow get a player to throw down 6-8 spine crawlers over the course of the game, and kill 5+ drones in early harass without losing too much yourself, I can see how your strategy works, but I just can't see how you would manage to do something like that. Effectively, for every spine crawler he puts down he loses 150 minerals, but at the same time, he will build 4 new drones PLUS a lot of new lings to defend, and of course the spine crawler will do its job to defend too.
Due to his higher mineral income from the very beginning (he has a lot of drones since his pool is delayed quite a lot) he can afford to defend with enough lings while still boosting his eco with his superior larvae production.
After the initial aggression that you suggest, the pool first player can throw down a hatchery too without having to cut lings or drones, because usually there will come a point where you have 300 minerals left over. The problem is that there will be a timing window when you need to commit a lot of larvae to drones if you don't want to fall too far behind, which your opponent can either abuse to produce even more drones, or get a lot of mutas / roaches ahead of you.
It's also not really hard to deduce theoretically: The defending player can defend while still getting ahead of you in economy (and more importantly: tech). In the long run, this will end in a win for him.
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I agree 100%. I'm interested in seeing responses to this because ZvZ has become complete build order rock paper scissors for me at least.
When you scout, your always a step behind. I don't see any point in scouting openings in ZvZ anymore. I just guess and hope I picked the right one. Say you see them FE; if you FE after them, you're doing the exact same strategy only getting off to a slower start... You can't scout a hatch first and counter it anymore, either you 6/7 pooled and instantly won, or you didn't and are now behind... It's very frustrating.
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Im 1600 diamond player and by FAR ZvZ is my worst MU.
Today I lost 3 times to huge lings openings.. I mean, the guy just spent on lings, most of them went like 11-12 pool... But even Im going 14 pool standard I barely survive, I just can hold myself while managing my larva between lings to defend and droning. I cant see how you can Hatch first in ZvZ and survive to a commited ling harass, and Im not even tlking about 6 pool, a basic 12 pool can deny the hatch... because you will always get scouted, If I scout a hatch first I just make lings and thats it, he doesnt have creep to lay spines and probably less lings than me, so or I win straight or I deny his exp and we start al over again the 2 expanding.
The biggest problem I have is getting pinned by my opponent. In ZvZ I like to go pool first, 13 or 14, I get a queen, bout 4 lings and a spine crawler, and if he commits to a heavy ling attack I survive most of the times, but with some mineral line harassing (ling passing through the sides of spines) and he usually at this point will have always more lings than me cause I spent on 1 or 2 spines.
At this point hes completely safe to expand to his natural since he cannot win right away but has his army at my door thou. After I get roachs or enough ling he retreats, but again, Im really behind cause his exp is already paying for itself.
Most of the games at this point people go Mutas, so I always get a couple Spores at my base and go for Hydras. The last match I played I owned his Muta harass, but he transitioned into Roach/Hydra himself with Infestor support. And thats it, past early game ZvZ is always about roach/hydra battles cause mutas sucks if one goes hydras. Then even when I macro good I hold the game until early late game, to the point he has his 3rd base and Im just going for a 3rd, then he overruns me with larger supply.
So ZvZ imo is very gimmicky... in the beggining I always thought it was a luck based MU, today it depends, sometimes the game is about who can ling faster and deny and exp. Sometimes is a luck baneling killing dozens of lings. And sometimes where the game evolves to mid game is about macro at best.
I really need advice on ZvZ, Im tired of losing =(
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Hatch first loses to ling/bling??! Since when???
I've always thought Hatch first is so insanely risky that's its practically suicide. I don't think I've ever lost against it. Spinecrawlers take forever to build up, and you are guarenteed to have significantly more lings than them. I just don't see how the hatch will ever survive against an aggressive player.
Personally I thought the only safe openings in ZvZ were ling/bling or roaches or roaches-into-FE. But never hatch first...
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Scout on 8. If you see early pool, don't go hatch first; if you don't see one, then go hatch first...
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Thats my point, imo its impossible to Hatch first in ZvZ unless both players hatch first
On November 16 2010 06:18 regulator_mk wrote:
Scout on 8. If you see early pool, don't go hatch first; if you don't see one, then go hatch first...
even a 14 pool can finish off a hatch first. An agressive player will always beat it.
PS: On a side note, you guys might have heard artosis in gsl saying that in korea you cant hatch first anymore against protoss and to terran cause you get cannon/bunker rushed. I think soon enough Zerg is not going to hatch first at all.
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On November 16 2010 06:03 heishe wrote:If you play against a good player, he will not overcommit to defense, but not to economy either. In practice, this means that the player will go through a constant "ling/drone/ling/drone/ling/drone/ling/drone" cycle, with a few spinecrawlers (depending on the map 2 or three) thrown in at the beginning and everytime one goes down.
This is what I'm looking for. If I run my first 6 Zerglings into their base and see that he has two Spine Crawlers started at his natural, I'm going to throw down my Hatchery and be confident I have both more money and more larvae than my opponent, and start droning, while being very careful that he doesn't out-ling me. (And to make sure he didn't try to drone after his pool finished)
Due to his higher mineral income from the very beginning (he has a lot of drones since his pool is delayed quite a lot) he can afford to defend with enough lings while still boosting his eco with his superior larvae production.
Ah, but the big major point is he doesn't have superior larvae production. With an 11 Spawning Pool, I have a Hatch/Queen level of production starting somewhere around 3:05, and my opponent doesn't even have two Hatcheries worth of larvae production until somewhere around 3:33.
If, for some silly reason we both droned with impunity, not building any Zerglings or Spine Crawlers, I would actually have 3-4 more drones than you permanently, should I decide to fast expand. (But your mineral advantage would remain for a long time)
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Drones until 10/10.
Thats about the safest BO I can think of, anything beyond that is monster micro management, smart and fast decision making and pure chance, not necessarily in the same order ;>
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On November 16 2010 06:19 gdTyrael wrote:Thats my point, imo its impossible to Hatch first in ZvZ unless both players hatch first Show nested quote +On November 16 2010 06:18 regulator_mk wrote:
Scout on 8. If you see early pool, don't go hatch first; if you don't see one, then go hatch first... even a 14 pool can finish off a hatch first. An agressive player will always beat it. PS: On a side note, you guys might have heard artosis in gsl saying that in korea you cant hatch first anymore against protoss and to terran cause you get cannon/bunker rushed. I think soon enough Zerg is not going to hatch first at all.
A hatch first counters a 14 pool pretty easily. Obviously we're not talking about steppes of war here, but on any map where hatch first is viable, it will easily be able to fend off 14 pool aggression. Stopping 11/12 pools is much harder, and stopping 6/7 pools is impossible.
I still find hatch first to be viable in ZvT and ZvZ. Bunker rushes can be beaten with hatch first, whereas cannon rushes can't.
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On November 16 2010 06:05 vsportsguy wrote:
I agree 100%. I'm interested in seeing responses to this because ZvZ has become complete build order rock paper scissors for me at least.
When you scout, your always a step behind. I don't see any point in scouting openings in ZvZ anymore. I just guess and hope I picked the right one. Say you see them FE; if you FE after them, you're doing the exact same strategy only getting off to a slower start... You can't scout a hatch first and counter it anymore, either you 6/7 pooled and instantly won, or you didn't and are now behind... It's very frustrating.
Why would you stop early scouting? 6-9 pools are common enough on the ladder that it's always worth scouting, for that reason alone. If they hatch first you can take an expo as well, with only a few seconds delay, or you can try a one-base attack. I've also had luck with a quick roach timing attack, but I don't know if it would work against better players.
Personally, I think a lot of zergs are way too fatalistic about this matchup. If you use a smart, stable opening (with good scouting), there isn't any reason why you can't survive to the midgame where there are a lot of options available. ZvZ is probably the most dynamic mirror matchup of the three races, if you can make it past the initial aggression.
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right now there arent any i know of, sadly. 1 base +1 roach comes closest to it, but it still feels gimmicke, all the others have hard counteres. Still, the most solid build, on most maps anyways, is hatch first. But it has hard counter as we all know. Today i played a number of zvzs about 3/4 of them were rock-paper-scissors. ~2400 points here
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Hatch first is viable/better on some maps, mostly 4 player maps. Even then if you hatch first and get close spawns vs someone doing an early pool you're in trouble. But on cross positions metal or Shakuras you are generally safe with hatch first. A good hatch first BO should be ok vs a 6-9 pool cross positions or on Shakuras in general. On a 2 player map a 6-9 pool can be good vs even a pool first build depending on control, on a 4 player map there's a lot of extra risk and 6-9 pool x-positions vs pool first build is suicide.
There are 2 ways to do hatch first. One is for a better economy and money. The 2nd is for a slightly better economy, but significantly more larva. Over a long period of time the 2nd method will get you a better economy vs 1 base, but the key is to understand that your initial goal is to just get more larva out so you have the advantage in ling #s.
Either way on maps that aren't large 4 player maps, pool first when executed correctly will have the advantage. Pool first gives you a larger initial drone count and a larger initial ling count. It takes a while (around the 2nd or 3rd vomit) for the hatch first player to begin pulling ahead. So your goal as the pool first player is simple, use your gas advantage to kill things and force a larva advantage. If you late pool (14/14 for example) or over drone this isn't really feasible so you need to have a good pool first build order that gets executed right.
Ling/bling vs roach is the same. Well almost, if you morph blings vs a roach player you're in trouble. However you should 100% of the time be able to scout the warren vs a player going roaches or read their composition and either cancel the baneling nest or skip morphing banelings before your first vomit. From there you are ahead. With the first vomit you can take a drone advantage or equalize the drone count, especially if you force him to make lings while his roach warren is in progress. From there you can exploit the fact that you don't need roaches right away* to get a better economy, faster expo, more roaches later, or faster upgrades. From there you're at worst in an even position with your opponent going into a roach based midgame.
*he's not going to move out with 4 roaches, and even if he does you can make roaches reactively and hold it.
If you are having trouble exploiting hatch first or roach openings then it's because either you're going for roaches first (which is at a disadvantage vs hatch first) or your ling/bling control and decision making isn't as good as it needs to be.
Why would you stop early scouting? 6-9 pools are common enough on the ladder that it's always worth scouting, for that reason alone. If they hatch first you can take an expo as well, with only a few seconds delay, or you can try a one-base attack. I've also had luck with a quick roach timing attack, but I don't know if it would work against better players.
TBH scouting is a waste in ZvZ if you open gas/pool. Regardless of what you see you won't be changing your build, so why waste the income. You don't need to do anything special to hold off a 6-9 pool if your control is good, your buildings are placed right, and your build orders are right for the map.
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On November 16 2010 03:40 heishe wrote:
The only case where it can be kind of even, depending on how good the two players react to their opponents, is the case of roach vs ling/bling. But even here, the ling/bling player will usually win, simply because he can scout the roach BO, get a little bit ahead in economy, and win the game this way.
That would make opening roaches completely obsolete, since it's also horrible against hatch first. From my experience though, roach openings do pretty well against normal ling/bling openings, especially on maps where the ling player can't cover his main and natural with spine crawlers.
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I totally agree with you OP. I'm not saying I've never been outplayed that's for sure. But you can usually tell when that's the case and when it's not.I don't really have too much to add I think you summed it up really. I guess it's worth saying that I've been having the most success with hatch first. But maybe it's just luck of the draw anyway.
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ever since the roach patch people have been doing alot of onebase roach, suprisingly enough ive been doing alot of 9 pooling just to put pressure on them and kill some drones while i get my own roaches. It seems to work quite well on alot of these gimmicky small rush distance maps.
There is one instance where you can hatchery first, if you spawn close by air on certain maps and you both stall your spawning pools.
If you never 6 pool and never hatchery first (unless its shakuras plateu) the matchup becomes alot less luck based.
The one base roach builds seem to work best atleast down here in mid diamond.
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You absolutely can hatch first if they pool first. I'm getting pretty decent at ZvZ now. I'm ~1700 btw
If they pool 14 or later, you can hatch first. This means they will have ling speed + blings before you - you CANNOT leave your base until you have speed, or once his speed finishes any lings you have on the field will die, he will come to your base, morph 1 bling, and then take down your hatch. GG
Always open with tons of lings once the pool comes up and just go check out what he's doing. If you see roaches, contain with lings, drone, and roach warren. You can hopefully outproduce him. If you see lings from him, morph some blings and try to kill him. It's a very, very fast paced MU, and you just gotta practice a bunch to figure out the little things.
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On November 16 2010 06:38 vsportsguy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2010 06:19 gdTyrael wrote:Thats my point, imo its impossible to Hatch first in ZvZ unless both players hatch first On November 16 2010 06:18 regulator_mk wrote:
Scout on 8. If you see early pool, don't go hatch first; if you don't see one, then go hatch first... even a 14 pool can finish off a hatch first. An agressive player will always beat it. PS: On a side note, you guys might have heard artosis in gsl saying that in korea you cant hatch first anymore against protoss and to terran cause you get cannon/bunker rushed. I think soon enough Zerg is not going to hatch first at all. A hatch first counters a 14 pool pretty easily. Obviously we're not talking about steppes of war here, but on any map where hatch first is viable, it will easily be able to fend off 14 pool aggression. Stopping 11/12 pools is much harder, and stopping 6/7 pools is impossible. I still find hatch first to be viable in ZvT and ZvZ. Bunker rushes can be beaten with hatch first, whereas cannon rushes can't.
Yeah, map distance plays a huge role, sorry for not mentioning it. Still I would like to know how worth is risking a FE. Supposing you yourself go everygame 11-12 pool, with the intention of not letting the other player FE, if he does 6-9 pool, you can hold it, if he 14 pool, your economy is not that far behind, if he FE you win or deny it at best.
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EPT
