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Edit2: Thread bumped to give some feedback, please note date of this post and consider if you want to answer to it. 
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=186817¤tpage=2#29
Edit: Doh, forgot the [L] tag.
So, at the moment bnet is doing its best to make me depressed, by continuing to make me play zvz consistently around or above 50%. (Last 40 games: zvz 20, zvp 13, zvt 7).
I am able to mostly beat toss and terran players ranked top gold and into plat, but my win percentage against zerg must be close to the 20% mark, and most of those few win games are the ones where I am matched against real newbies, like 40 games bronze players.
I have some replays, if anyone has any insights they would be most welcome. If there is any other info I should supply, let me know.
Game 1:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-183036.jpg)
Game 2:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-183037.jpg)
Game 3:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-183038.jpg)
Game 4:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-183039.jpg)
I am sure much of my problem is that I haven't had any success with any build, so i don't practise one strategy the way I should. But now I am pretty much broken when it comes to zvz, it is really killing my enjoyment of laddering, and I feel that i am going into any zvz game with a shitty mindset.
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To be honest man everyone is still figuring it out. It is the hardest matchup by far. The best you can do is go watch some GSL games and steal some strats.
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The easiest strategy I've found that works in most ZvZ's is early pressure.
Example: Zergling + Baneling and crush them with good micro.
Example: Fast Roaches.
Usually - You can win the game with this depending on who you play or how you play.
I don't have time to watch the replays now, but I did what I could. If you know this stuff already, sorry that it didn't help. >_<
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Lol, that is the problem, at the moment I don't feel like I know anything at all, I don't have any plans, any tactics, or any hope for that matter. The problem is worsened by the fact that I get so many mirror matchups.
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Only watched first game but you lost because you had worse macro in that game. He should have been far behind because he tried to all in you on 1 base then after you defended several times he decided to expand. Also you shouldn't have attacked into him, you had economical advantage so you could have just tried to use up your minerals first THEN attack. Also place your overlords better, put them in the middle of the map and stuff because they'll most likely be untouched if its just roach vs roach, unless they got hydras or muta or osmething like that. Could have used the extra minerals to just make spinecrawlers so you can cut corners and get ahead in econ even more.
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EGMachine did a good review of his ZvZ with MrBitter..can't find the link right now but it's 3 builds, all pretty simple and work pretty well! Sorry I'll try to find the link.
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Title made me lol ... Bane of my existence banelings XD
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second to HadesCP watch the EGMachine ZvZ coacing session from Mr. Bitter's stream it is amazing
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If you really hate it that much, downvote shakuras, scrap and meta and you'll avoid a lot more zergs
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Okay im gonna resist trying to tell you what strat to use. But I will say this, if you are going to use a strat, learn how to do it the right way.
You are absurdly overdefensive the entire game (replay 1), you make a simcity/spines/put roaches in your mineral line when scouting your opponent could provide you all the info you need (especially once you had roaches out man, that spine was stuck in there cause of placement, you could have blocked your choke with a TINY amount of roaches). You made almost no early lings. You are incredibly slow with your upgrades and spells (your +1 ranged was sooo late, and you got +1 carapace before +2 ranged for some reason, in addition you had the money to upgrade and TWO evo chambers for a LONGGGGG time; you also got burrow movement BEFORE YOU TECH'D BURROW AND BEFORE YOU GOT YOUR SECOND ROACH UPGRADE EVEN WITH TWO EVO CHAMBERS O_O)
The key thing to watch in the matchup above was your opponents natural (i.e. when its going up). On one base his choices are relatively limited, but you had no vision of his natural most of the time. Thankfully he didn't choose to expo when he easily could of, and you even got off your expo before him. That should have translated into a roach timing push off 2 base to rofl him, but for some reason you overdroned at stayed on roach tech without bringing an attack until late in the game.
Also, watch this replay over and over, THERE IS SO MUCH INFORMATION HERE, your opponent made a ton of HUGE micro mistakes (I couldnt even watch after his horrible attack to take out your roach warren and pool). You clearly made mistakes of your own although your roach micro was better. I haven't watched the other replays yet, but I suggest watching your own replays again and again to glean the source of the problems you are facing.
Roach block --> 2 base roach push --> roach/hydra/infestor (if your roach push was met with roaches of his own that held it) isn't a horrible strategy, but learn how to do it the right way.
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Personally in ZvZ, I usually open with slings that have +1/1 then react to the opponent..
A lot of times you see a Bling reaction, which isn't so bad if you micro it out (We are in similar leagues, though it does take some practice it's not too bad)
Usually if you can keep them focused on building tier 1, you can have the time to tech past them and deny then expanding, which comes to a GG most the time
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Thanks a lot for the tips guys, will check out the mrbitter machine vod, and revisit my own replays before massing games again. This shit has to stop.
Edit:
Lmao, i feel like the biggest dork when reading eth3n post. But thanks so much for your time.
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day9 also has done some simple yet very well timed build for ZvZ in his newbie tuesday. go check out that series. it'll help u alot.
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If you're gonna check out the mrbitter machine vod you might as well watch zvz with Ret as well. Its a better way to fast expand than the way machine suggests imo and can be used in more situations.
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If you want fewer ZvZs stop downvoting the maps that Zergs classically hate. Just learn to play on all maps; it's not a big deal until you get to really high skill levels.
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i thought i had it bad when i got 7 ZvZsin a row lol. personally i liked ZvZ lots more when it was mostly Ling bane because now its all just one big roach spam. I have found that Zergs are getting super fucking greedy and like opening with an FE and then going into roaches while skipping lings and ling speed, so in response to this i have been doing the good old 14 gas 14 pool and putting on lots of speedling pressure. The advantage with getting speed for your ling is you can freely expand pick off drones, small roach groups and queens also this often forces spine crawlers. also try this BO (its alot of fun)
gas 10/10
drone 9/10
pool (put 2 drones on gas) 10/10
ovie 9/10
drone 10/10
6lings 10/18
baneling nest 13/18
pump lings until bling nest is done and make like 5-6 banes once the nest is finished
super fast banes catch alot of people by surprise
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I watched a couple games. In addition to the advice that has already been given, I can make a few suggestions.
You should think about using a consistent hotkey scheme. You sometimes hotkeyed your hatches, sometimes hotkeyed part of your army, etc. It's nice to dedicate keys to your hatches/queens, then have groups of units on other keys. There are a lot of ways people do it, so I won't go into detail, but all of them are faster than mouse selecting every time.
You should also always be asking yourself if you know (or have an idea of) what your opponent is doing, to make sure that you're taking a path to counter that. I get the impression that you're almost sitting around and waiting to die, because you haven't scouted his unit composition, you don't know if he's expanding or spamming units to kill you, etc. It seems to me that you can beat P and T because droning up and waiting to block attacks basically works in those matchups. Against Z especially (still holds true for the others, but not to the same extent) you need to constantly be gauging his army to figure out what damage you can do and what units you need to produce... if you just sit on some set of units and wait, your opponent will produce the counter and roll you over.
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On January 23 2011 11:39 Tynan wrote:
If you want fewer ZvZs stop downvoting the maps that Zergs classically hate. Just learn to play on all maps; it's not a big deal until you get to really high skill levels.
Dude, I don't think it matter tbh. Check the thread I link to in the first post. The opponent is picked before the map. I think the reason i get a lot of zerg is that a lot of zerg are struggling in silver while the terran players has moved on.
Also, I tried removing my Lost Temple veto, only thing that changed is that now i play a lot of zvz on lost temple as well lol.
But you are right though, I find that with my new love of aggressive creep spread i have been getting very good results against P and T on LT. I may actually get rid of my SOW veto.
On January 23 2011 11:45 SigmaSin wrote:
You should also always be asking yourself if you know (or have an idea of) what your opponent is doing, to make sure that you're taking a path to counter that. I get the impression that you're almost sitting around and waiting to die, because you haven't scouted his unit composition, you don't know if he's expanding or spamming units to kill you, etc. It seems to me that you can beat P and T because droning up and waiting to block attacks basically works in those matchups.
You are probably right. I have made a very intentional adjustment in my gameplay to play extremely reactionary mostly speedling muta with a ton of creepsread against P and T, and it has been very successfull. However I feel that I am going to have to diversify my tactics to really improve. Also as you say it is extremely difficult to translate my zvp and zvt into a meaningful zvz tactic.
And I do understand that my mindset is a huge part of the problem here. Oh well.
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You should work on ONE build for ZvZ and perfect it, exactly as Day9 says.
I highly recommend doing this:
14 pool
15 gas
Make roach warren immediately when pool finishes. Make roaches, don't waste larva on lings. Put the roaches on your ramp on hold position and block any speedlings or baneling runbys. This build is extremely safe.
Don't waste time trying do do a playstyle of speedlings and banelings, just go for roaches, it's too much for you to focus on during the game, just work on your macro.
- mid masters zerg.
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Lately I've been doing a blind all in in ZvZ, with very good success at the 2700 diamond level.
Basically I open 15 pool 14 gas. Get roach warren as soon as pool finishes. While you're waiting for warren to finish, get an extra overlord and an evo chamber. Soon as the warren finishes start pumping roaches and get +1 ranged attack when the evo finishes. Use the roaches to block off your ramp but keep some at your hatch to hide your numbers, you want to keep them guessing.
Move out to attack with +1 ranged is 80-90% complete, just try to time it to where it finishes right as your roaches reach his natural.
If they go super early banelings be prepared to micro your drones until a few roaches complete, it's pretty easy to hold off and leaves you ahead.
This is not something that will work forever, but I've been winning 90% of my zvzs with it and will continue using it until people get wise to it.
So far I have only lost to mass speedling where I moved out too soon and he ran speedlings into my base to kill all my drones and then ran back in time to save what was left of his base. I've also lost to fast expand builds on lost temple because they can get such strong spine crawler defense at the narrow natural. The nice thing is I am able to recognize these things so I will just not attack when it looks too risky and instead take an expo.
Most game people are completely caught off guard with my roach numbers + ranged upgrade and it is a very easy win.
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Go 11 Over pool, 18 extractor + queen + ling + Roach Waren, get xel naga with lings, force other play to make lings, burst out 3 roaches, and block any speedling/baneling crap. from their on either drone up or react to see if he pushes, go lair get double gas, get +1 get speed and an over seer and push or expand yourself. This works 90% of the time, the other 10% is when you let speedlings runby, which can be easily stopped, block your ramp..., and your reinforcements should be able to kill alot of speedlings, and your areadly won, cause he wasted all that larva.
If you see a 15 hatch, your best off expanding yourself, hopefully the man will waste larva on lings.
If you see no roaches, get +1 attack range and attack his natural.
This works for me at mid high 2700ish masters.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THIS MATCHUP is fienting attacks, so move out of your base then move back in so you can distract the other player to make units or static while you make drones. The more he does this the more your ahead.
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On January 23 2011 11:36 ChaosTriggeR wrote:
If you're gonna check out the mrbitter machine vod you might as well watch zvz with Ret as well. Its a better way to fast expand than the way machine suggests imo and can be used in more situations.
I found the MrBitter VOD but where can I find this ret video?
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I watched yr 1st replay, you not bad. Yr macro was good.
You held opp off well...I tht even with yr mistakes you were gonna win, the loss shocked me.
If you just waited until you had a few more hydras....  3 cudnt change tide much
Day9 advice above is good...having watched a gazillion replays of pros...it seems the safest build is
few lings, roach, roach attack upgrade then burrow move (not burrow).....hydra, infestor
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I agree with Twaxter, I've been using the 11 overpool build and I only lose in the late game in ZvZ. It's great because when your opponent scouts, they will think you've done a 10 pool and the proper response to the 10 pool is to 14 pool roach. If they do that, then you will expand first and be ahead.
If your opponent does a 10 pool, you'll be able to hold with lings/queen/spinecrawler while you're waiting for your roaches to hatch. The key advantage is that you have a queen and they have a low unit count so you'll be able to hold.
If your opponent does the 14 pool roach all-in that Treemonkeys was talking about, then you'll have an expansion and your roaches should hatch just in time to defend. I don't know how to add replays to my response, but I have one I played recently where I held off that exact attack and I made a million mistakes. You have more larvae and economy than your opponent so the longer you hold, the better shape you're in. Bring queens to fight in early battles.
If your opponent does an expand first, you should be able to beat them by doing a speedling all-in. You might not even need to expand. The 11 overpool build is very strong economically and you have more larvae than the other openings so you should be in good shape. I'm not sure though because I've never played a game where the zerg expanded first and then pressured me.
Remember that you can wall of most ramps with two roaches and a queen. Make sure you have a ling to scout when they move out and you should be fine.
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the only two strats ive seen in high diamond level are mass roach and mass zergling with the OCCASIONAL ling bane style play.
my favorite build is just to open with speedlings and expand. if you see him doing the same you can add bane. if you see him going roach forget the nest and just mass tons and tons of lings.
if he comes out at a normal timing and you attack the roaches in the open, ie not in your mineral line or on a ramp or between a buch of buildings you should be able to stomp his army. (try hitting the roaches when there in a line, as opposed to being in a balll so that each roach can get surrounded.)
if he waits befor pushing out the lings are gonna be very much less effective. so in this case your gonna need to get roaches of your own and continue to scout. the unit counters in zvz are some of the roughest most unforgiving counters in the game. \
dont feel bad about being lost in zvz it is a very troublesom and complex matchup that has been evolving for some time now. just be diligent and watch some reps.
if there was one key word i could convey to you that i think has helped my zvz the most.
macro!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT MISS INJECTS (they WILL cost you the game)
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Just practice 15 gas 15 pool and defending any early lings with your drones get queen as soon as pool is down. as soon as queen is done get liar and 2nd gas. make sure u see wats coming out his ramp(build 2 lings early and try to get them into his base to see for banes or roaches, if banes u need roaches) if its 6 pool or 8 pool u might need to get a spine crawler up and few ling. Its all about not losing many drones to this and you will be ahead. From that point its up to u wat u want to do. If he hasnt got his liar up go burrow speed roaches and anytime a roach is close to the red burrow him. Deny his scouting and use overseers to keep scouting him. By seeing his army you know wat to build and when to drone. Something ive been playing with is putting up a spire, if he scouts it, alot of the time they put down 6 spores and quickly techs to hydra, if he doesnt spot it get a bit of defence and go muta pwn him. Wat will happen is he has built lots of roaches and will run to ur base as soon as he sees muta in his. so do dmg and get back in time, if ur defences are good its pretty much gg from there
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On January 24 2011 02:42 Kinch2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 11:36 ChaosTriggeR wrote:
If you're gonna check out the mrbitter machine vod you might as well watch zvz with Ret as well. Its a better way to fast expand than the way machine suggests imo and can be used in more situations. I found the MrBitter VOD but where can I find this ret video?
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=177791
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Machine said in another one of MrBitters videos that his builds are kind of "outdated" and he is looking to incorporate one of Day9's 1 base roach into lair builds. Look up day9's 235 daily episode, its a great build and Im thinking of using it as a standard on maps where FE is risky. On maps like lost temp and metalopolis FE and go into roach play and watch for mutas. also with day9's build you dont have to worry about learning baneling/ling play which is great so you dont have to master as much
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Thought I would give a little feedback here, after some time, hopefully I'm forgiven for bumping:
I am actually doing a bit better zvz now. My present main gameplan is going 11 pool, then pump 4 roaches ASAP to combat any ling pressure and then block my ramp. After that I go lair tech of one base and aim for getting an advantage so i can secure an expansion early in the midgame.
I haven't perfected anything yet to be sure, but at least i seem to have gotten rid of my tragic mindset i had going into zvz. I think one big change is that at least now I have one thing prepared up to 25 supply that I am using pretty much every game, this increases the quality of practise by a lot.
Thanks for your kind input everybody who wrote here and the guy who sent me a crazy long pm!
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I'm pretty good at my ZvZ but keep in mind I am only a 3300 Diamond ranked player.
My opening goes as follows:
-15 hatch
-15 pool
-16 gas
-17 overlord
-@Pool 100% done, drop roach warren immediately before queen
-6 Zerglings for defense and/or scouting
-Queen
-Overlord
-4-6 Roaches depending on how aggressive your opponent is being
(cont'd: If you notice OP is being really zergling heavy I like to drop a banelings nest and keep 4-6 banes near my roaches and 2 on ramp to make sure those lings do absolutely nothing.)
-Drone up but keep making 2 roaches at a time to ensure you can hold off pressure
From here you go wherever you want.
I like to get 1 evo chamber and start +attack until I have +2 attk then get armor. If I notice I can easily afford the 1 evo chamber I get 2 evo's for double upgrades on atk and armor.
Upgrade to lair as soon as possible because you want roach speed as soon as you can get it which you will use for harassment as well as denying a natural expansion if they are 1 basing or to deny a 3rd. Keep the 4-6 banelings you made at home for a zergling counter while you are away from your base.
Continue to deny his expansions while you take a 3rd. Get a hydra den and the rest should be fairly simple.
That's normally what has been winning games for me lately. Make sure you constantly scout as well, not only with attacking units but also with overlords. Position overlords around his bases so that if something tricky comes out like mutalisks... the muta attack the overlords while you have time to spore up. Since you already have your evo chamber(s) up for upgrades you can easily get 2-3 spores per base which completely denies the muta doing anything useful then you make a few hydra if you haven't already, push out and win.
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I hate ZvZ, and I too have the problem where I'm getting ZvZ about 50% of games. I have no idea why, it's not like everyone is playing zerg. Wish I'd had this many vZ matchups back when I was a protoss.
In my experience, to actually play it well you have to be at such a high level to scout correctly and know the responses. It's basically throwing shit at each other hoping you might get an edge somehow, and then if that doesnt work one person tries to go muta. Half the time they'll die before mutas are out, the other half they'll get mutas and that's the game won.
In terms of openings, in general I've also found:
Speedling > Roach
Roach > Baneling
Baneling > Speedling
a.k.a.
Scissor > Paper
Paper > Rock
Rock > Scissor
What a shit matchup.
I know the speedling>roach seems a bit weird but most speedling openings can bum rush a roach opening before it gets going, and if you catch roaches in open field you can get a really good surround on them and they just drop.
But yeah if you can scout well I think it becomes a lot less rock/paper/scissor. But I'm not there yet.
EDIT: I wish that you could queue for different matchups, and have a different ranking for each. In the same way you have a ladder for each 2v2 team you are on, you would have a seperate ladder and matchmaking for your ZvT, ZvP, ZvZ and your ZvAnyone.
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If you arent diamond, mechanics are the way that you will see the greatest improvements in mirrors
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Day9 made a newbie tuesday about zvz if you want to watch it. Easy and simple, even if you find the skill level's below you, you can definitely take something away from this
Here's the link:
http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4650275/
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Gold/Nearly Plat here; ZvZ is my best matchup. Unless I don't scout early and I get 6/7/8/9/10 Pooled I just assume that they're going speedlings and then plan transition from there. More often than not you'll hit Bling/Roach tech and the game plays out from there in my experience.
You need to pressure early, if you can stop them expanding, snipe drones/his first queen and force them to do what you want them to do (Which by using speedlings is either make banelings or roaches) you can plan ahead and control the game.
Also punish a 15 hatching zerg as much as possible, if you can harass his expo or even kill it while expanding yourself you should have no trouble mopping up his inferior force, just make sure you don't let his economy kick in or you'll be wayyyy behind.
I tend to 14gas, 14pool, Speed, Queen then make Lings til 22 and expand behind unless you've got his back against the wall in which case just macro up and spam him with lings til he taps out.
Just my 2 cents, prolly a lot of mistakes people will pick up on but hey
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If your opponent goes 15 hatch on a close positions map go for a banneling all in and win 95% of the time
if you opponent does a early pool, go 14 pool, take no gas, and save three larva for right when your pool finishes to make six zerglings.
Otherwise a 14gas/14 pool, make 4 lings, pressure and poke to get a feel they are doing, expand and go roach from there. ZvZ is hard mostly because there are so many effective cheases, but once you make it to 11 minutes ok the game is pretty straightforward from there. He who has the most roach/hydras wins.
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a simple strat with good win rate: 11 (over)pool, speed, banenest (even try bane before speed, will surprise many opponents). after queen and 15 drones, just pump lings, get +1 in case he is going roach, do not macro or drone up, if minerals stack up => 2cnd hatch. If you got lotso lings, morph some banes and attack with lings, go with banes for eco. Ensure your mass lings get not scouted. Most Zerg start teching and macroing, so they are simply killed by a timing push. If they go fast muta => instant attack, they will have no defense :-) + queen+spores
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On close positions it can be a bit tougher but with proper micro you can still pull off my build with fast roaches doing a 15 hatch 15 pool. The key is to use the roaches to kill the banes and block the choke to start. Given proper scouting you notice he is ling heavy or if you are lucky you spot a baneling or banelings nest in which case you make one of your own and send 2 banelings at a time toward his incoming baneling group. 2 Banelings will kill an infinite number of banelings that are bunched.
I've won many times doing this.
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i don't get it how you get away with 15h14p. I always crush them with agression, roaches are too late to defend fast ling/fast bane rushes .. it requires very good micro to defend a 15h15p against this.
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Double hatch speedling builds are effective. You can pump out enough lings to make banes ineffective.
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I got tired of trying to go roach so now I just go for a speedling expand build, the hard part about the speedling expand build is knowing when to stop attacking and start droning and when to transition into roaches or banelings.
But it's great practice for micro so I enjoy it, and I have a fairly good win rate since many people are greedy.
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On March 09 2011 06:22 Schnullerbacke13 wrote:
i don't get it how you get away with 15h14p. I always crush them with agression, roaches are too late to defend fast ling/fast bane rushes .. it requires very good micro to defend a 15h15p against this.
I would love if someone could answer this question lol. I'm always the one getting crushed. When I watch professionals play it seems like they can also put down 15 hatchery 14 pool and defend with very little problems. When I try to go 15 hatchery 14 pool I just don't seem to be able to produce enough units to defend and my opponent just keeps pumping ling until I just can't keep up.
Lately I have been going the build below.
9 overlord
14 pool
13 gas
16 overlord
16 queen
17 ling
18 ling
19 overlord
20 ling
block ramp with lings.
Then once I have the money I drop my roach warren and stock pile gas and minerals for at least 6 roaches. After that I expand or attach depending on what I scout.
Downside is I don't get zergling speed so I have to be on top of my overlord spreed for vision. Later in the game when my expo is safe I will get zergling speed.
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I feel like you can 15 hatch pretty well on most maps. But really only using that expansion once you have some roaches to defend it. The build i use is usually 15 hatch 15 pool 17 gas and as soon as your pool pops 6-8 lings along with getting your roach warren. Even though you're not actually using the expo right away, the fact is it is there and you're opponent has to expand himself or all in if he did not expo himself. As long as you don't allow a ling run by and control your roaches well, you will almost always be ahead.
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EPT
