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Hi, I have been practising this build rather successfully against zerg. I am platinum level, so i don't yet have the proper control that you speak of, so I am not doing it perfectly.
But I was wondering about one thing: what to do against an opponent who blocks his ramp with lings and roach? In this particular match I tried to engage his lings to gain access to his base so I could run in and overwhelm, although in the end I failed, due to lost amount of lings I guess, and slippery injection. I am not sure what I could have done differently here? Do you have any tips?
The problem is that I couldn't access his base without losing lings to begin with, and after a short time more roaches would have popped out and made it entirely impossible.
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/163093-1v1-zerg-backwater-gulch
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Sounds pretty cool and really strong, will definitely try it out when I get home. One thing I would like to note though, the recently more popular spanishwa build calls for like 4 queens right, 2 of which block the ramp? Even if it wasnt queens and the opponent goes for roach timing, would this build still do enough damage? I don't know the answer because I don't know how the timing matches up for these two builds.
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u stated a build that wanted to accomplish so many goals
and all it is an 11 pool speedling build?
User was temp banned for this post.
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updated OP slightly, also added a new game vs another GM player:
 vs iCHORNinja vs Michael ![[image loading]](http://www.topreplays.com/img/layout/download.png)
- This game ended up going up and into the 20 minute mark, but if you watch you'll notice that after the initial aggression, I never really give up my lead, and that safe expansion really helps solidify this game in the later stages. (His BM is because I 6-pooled him on ladder and won, not because he isn't normally a nice guy! I'd have probably BM'd too.)
On April 13 2011 02:43 Fishermang wrote:Hi, I have been practising this build rather successfully against zerg. I am platinum level, so i don't yet have the proper control that you speak of, so I am not doing it perfectly. But I was wondering about one thing: what to do against an opponent who blocks his ramp with lings and roach? In this particular match I tried to engage his lings to gain access to his base so I could run in and overwhelm, although in the end I failed, due to lost amount of lings I guess, and slippery injection. I am not sure what I could have done differently here? Do you have any tips? The problem is that I couldn't access his base without losing lings to begin with, and after a short time more roaches would have popped out and made it entirely impossible. http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/163093-1v1-zerg-backwater-gulch
Your pool was 25 seconds late which also caused your rush to be about 25 seconds late. Lastly, on backwater gulch cross-position, this build needs to be air-tight to hit those timing windows.
Had you hit it, I think you'd have been able to surround his roaches with your speedlings without issue, then surround the spine/queen and finish him off without much trouble.
Drone micro is very important when you are working at a build that needs to be this precise, and you didn't really double up on close minerals the way you should, and then missing those few carries + minerals on the extractor mis-cancel hurt you a bit.
I highly recommend reading this thread, which encapsulates almost exactly what I am referring to and in equal or better words than I could explain to you:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=211953
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Thanks alot for the reply! I am still learning the basics of such specific timings and drone splittings so you pointing out specifics helps out alot 
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updated the OP a lot and also added an all-in option I've been using on ladder with high success recently against better players. I've been playing random though in these games, so that may be part of it.
I really feel that the spine all-in version is tremendously strong against just about anything most zergs can do.
I still believe this is a nice alternative to the standard zvz, as even if you can't end the game, because it's mirror your game can and sometimes will continue along a different path, giving you (the player expecting this) a material and situational advantage.
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I watched some of the replays, and I can't say I'm overly impressed by the play of some of your opponents. Especially the lack of scouting by some of them have completely made me wonder exactly how low the quality of players is starting to become.
The timing of this kind of attack is actually so late, that an expansion first would likely hold it. What I suggest you try a lot more is to poke out with the slow lings. In some of your games, 8-10 slow lings would be at his base before he'd be able to have Lings out. That is potentially game-ending. - There's no need to wait for speed to kick in to be agressive, you've just got to be more nimble till then.
-- Edit --
What I am trying to point out is the fact that your attack with 21 speedlings hits at 4:45 earliest. At 4:45 a 14 expand would be able to absolutely crush this sort of attack. At that point in time, a 14 hatch will have; A spine, 2 queens and about 12-14 slow zerglings. That is more than enough to drive you away, unless the ramp is abnormally huge.
If you attack earlier with a small amount of slow lings, you'll be able to force mistakes, or at least delay the 14 hatches unbreakable defense.
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Since i first read about this strat in this thread i have been using it mainly in all my ZvZ's and it works a treat, thank you op!
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On April 24 2011 12:41 Xana wrote:
I watched some of the replays, and I can't say I'm overly impressed by the play of some of your opponents. Especially the lack of scouting by some of them have completely made me wonder exactly how low the quality of players is starting to become.
The timing of this kind of attack is actually so late, that an expansion first would likely hold it. What I suggest you try a lot more is to poke out with the slow lings. In some of your games, 8-10 slow lings would be at his base before he'd be able to have Lings out. That is potentially game-ending. - There's no need to wait for speed to kick in to be agressive, you've just got to be more nimble till then.
-- Edit --
What I am trying to point out is the fact that your attack with 21 speedlings hits at 4:45 earliest. At 4:45 a 14 expand would be able to absolutely crush this sort of attack. At that point in time, a 14 hatch will have; A spine, 2 queens and about 12-14 slow zerglings. That is more than enough to drive you away, unless the ramp is abnormally huge.
If you attack earlier with a small amount of slow lings, you'll be able to force mistakes, or at least delay the 14 hatches unbreakable defense.
Which games are you referring to?
I've lost one game in 3 months to hatch first, and it was against the #2 zerg on SEA (and my rush was late.) But if you have an account on NA/SEA/KOR we can 1v1 and test it out. I certainly don't see 14hatch that often.
Vs hatch first I almost always attack with my earliest lings. At least where I play, 14hatch is a very uncommon opener. It's either 15hatch or pool first most of the time.
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----> Michael vs 콩라인득도 against 14h cross-slag <-----
If you watch the timings and replay closely, I don't see you being at his base a whole lot sooner than what you were. If those lings had been at the ramp with the two queens and one spinecrawler for support, I don't see you breaking through in any way or shape.
Else, again, the two hatches inbase completely demolishes this build. You get the same amount of queens at the same time, and can use the hatch to help blocking off your ramp. This build is made for two-versus-two, and the point was to force early units and stop any attempt at expansions. As with any Zerg versus Zerg, if people are slightly bad at scouting they'll do mistakes. Mr 콩라인득도 could've easily won if he had gathered his units + queens at the ramp and kept you out.
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You should state when to scout and with what on 4player maps. First lings? 11 Drone? probably not as the build is too tight. OL will maybe not get to a base in time on some maps even.
Also, a Roach rush will have 7 Roaches by 4:45, blocking the ramp forever.
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On April 24 2011 18:41 Morghaine wrote:
You should state when to scout and with what on 4player maps. First lings? 11 Drone? probably not as the build is too tight. OL will maybe not get to a base in time on some maps even.
Also, a Roach rush will have 7 Roaches by 4:45, blocking the ramp forever.
Only a complete noob would 7RR in zvz, but I will tell you that it does counter this one build (and it loses to every other zvz build outright).
I always scout with my first lings, as those lings are pretty much 100% undeniable. I send two lings to run a circle around the enemy's base and then may micro one of them. They run opposite rings. I thought I had this in the OP but if not I'll be sure to add it.
Because nothing your opponent can do before that time will impact your build, there is no reason whatsoever to drone scout. 11pool is completely safe vs any earlier pool, and any build counter (10 pool baneling, perfectly timed 14gas pool baneling) can be scouted with the initial two lings. If you scout this baneling nest and decide to abandon the build, you can do so before the first inject pops.
Recently I've always scouted the other adjacent position first rather than close position. Then, with a drone scout I can clip the side of my base around 1:10-1:30 to see his overlord (depending on the map). On metal it's 1:10 and on Shattered it's closer to 1:25. This doesn't reveal I have a pool until well after I've laid it.
In general ZvZ, I pretty much think drone scout is worthless unless you plan to go for an extremely greedy 15hatch, in which case you should scout on 9. Otherwise, in such a volatile matchup, I'd rather have the 50 minerals and rely on ling scouting and a safe early opener.
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added two more replays:
vs jaydubz vs Michael
vs Michael vs Metal
Both of these guys were rank 1 diamond just about to be promoted to master, and I was rank 1 diamond and promoted after these last two games.... so it's definitely a viable all-in at low master level about where I thought.
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A 15 hatch is not greedy. The point about the 15 hatch is that with an 8 scout on some maps, or a 9 scout on others, you're more than likely to reach the enemy's base before you hit 14-15 workers. If you then see such an early pool and noone mining gas anymore, its easy to instantly toss down a pool constricting movement, and then have your lings+queen in your mineral line. There is no way in hell someone can break such a defense without banelings.
The 15 hatch build has a scout that allows you to go 14 pool if the need calls for it. After that its just a matter of staying in your base and not losing those lings to speedlings. 26 speedlings fight just as good as 26 lings. The simple key to beating this strategy is to do proper scouting. We're talking knowing what comes out of the first injection cycle, and if only lings has been made up untill this point. If you're capable of reading that, you'll know exactly what you need to stay alive.
~ Xana.
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On April 26 2011 04:38 Xana wrote:
A 15 hatch is not greedy. The point about the 15 hatch is that with an 8 scout on some maps, or a 9 scout on others, you're more than likely to reach the enemy's base before you hit 14-15 workers. If you then see such an early pool and noone mining gas anymore, its easy to instantly toss down a pool constricting movement, and then have your lings+queen in your mineral line. There is no way in hell someone can break such a defense without banelings.
The 15 hatch build has a scout that allows you to go 14 pool if the need calls for it. After that its just a matter of staying in your base and not losing those lings to speedlings. 26 speedlings fight just as good as 26 lings. The simple key to beating this strategy is to do proper scouting. We're talking knowing what comes out of the first injection cycle, and if only lings has been made up untill this point. If you're capable of reading that, you'll know exactly what you need to stay alive.
~ Xana.
You make some good points for discussion, but slow lings =/= speedlings in a fight. Speedlings are usually able to get a much better concave/surround than slow lings, which makes a huge difference in this attack.
Not really how confident you can be in being able to scout this coming, 26 Speedlings at 4:45 is extremely fast IMO, and I've had pretty reasonable success with it on the ladder, really only losing to one-base Roach or players that were flat out better than me.
All-in-all a pretty good pressure to have in the toolbox for ZvZ.
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The point is to not allow that concave. By fighting in the mineral line, against a wall or on your ramp means that the other player cannot surround. If you attack, the enemy has the advantage of the defender, which means fighting where he pleases. If he chooses his ramp and support it with queens your push is dead. Afterwards, you'll be pressured with lings and forced to make units. In that scenario, you won't be making drones. As your opponent is up one hatch on you, he'll be speeding ahead in everything and you'll be dead in the water.
I really do suggest going for attempted early expand every single game. Early expands on most maps holds 14 pool without a sweat and leaves the opponent dying.
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uploaded a new master replay from a grudge match custom when some guy called me out in a team game after he went 1base roach on a huge 4v4 map. Its full of BM and a pretty good example yet again of why this subtly altered speedling expand exploits almost every other zerg build.
The queen hunting his OL both blocked him and lured his roaches out, was simple clean up after that.
vs SoYLauroS vs Michael
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Tried this build and I loose most of times when opponent goes for roach.
Most times, they feel aggression coming and are going for 2 spines and I loose too
Can you give me some tips?
Here is one of my replay (forgot to bring drones for spines on this one)
I am only a silver player, trying to improve, so you would certainly see a few mistakes there 
vs Celeblin vs Arch
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I'm not sure if I've ever faced this build exactly, but my standard zvz is a 10 overpool, queen on 15, extractor after queen that skips ling speed and uses the first 50 gas for a baneling nest. I expand with 6-8 slowlings and morph banes and have 4-6 banes and 4-8 lings with a hatch building at 4:40. I drop a roach warren and transition to roach/bling. I'm pretty sure this survives and comes out economically ahead against this build, though I'd be down for testing it.
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Seems interesting. I'll have to check this out.
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EPT
