EPT[G] ZvZ Mass Contaminate Build - Page 2
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RageQuitter
United States84 Posts
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entropius
United States1046 Posts
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PiLoKo
Mexico144 Posts
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Saracen
United States5139 Posts
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Johnny_Vegas
United States239 Posts
I tried it a couple nights ago versus a FE zerg on Shakuras, but didn't quite have enough to stop his roach/ling counter. He correctly assumed I wouldn't have much of an army if I got 3 overseers so quick, and killed me. I even got overlord speed, because I personally think overseers are pretty slow without it, and I don't want to lose the units my whole strategy is based on. That 500 gas could have been combat units I could have used to inflict direct damage to my enemy. I'd recommend trying an alternate way over using overseers.... Skip overlord speed at first, get Lair at a normal time, and only add Overseers gradually, while maintaining a more traditional zerg army. I'm thinking something like 1 overseer for every 400 gas you mine (which will roughly translate to one overseer per minute, mining 4 geysers). By gradually adding overseers, and keeping them alive, you can use them as a slow drain on their tech and production, all game long. You might want to try playing defensively, while focusing on upgrades, at the same time slowing his upgrades. I doubt an overseer is worth the cost, if you only land 1 contamination with it, you probably have to keep it alive for at least 2 for it to be worthwhile. Also, I would not completely ignore changelings in favor of contamination. Changelings have won me more games than I would ever have expected. Changelings are especially annoying against other zergs, because the speedling form of the changeling is the smallest and fastest! | ||
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RageQuitter
United States84 Posts
On February 26 2011 05:12 Saracen wrote: The proper response is adding another hatchery in your main or nat. Exactly. You could even expand because they probably wont have a lot of units since its 300 gas and 150 minerals which could have been invested into roaches or something. | ||
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zylog
Canada943 Posts
1 Base Roach I sometimes use this build on close ground positions. It opens similarly to your, though I'll typicallly only get 6 roaches to block the ramp. Once my lair finishes, if I dont see an expansion from you I'll make 1 overseer to scout for 1 base muta. So at this point, we're more or less equal. However, your next 200 gas goes towards extra overseers, while I would get +1 attack and roach speed. When they finish, I would go for a timing attack. With those specific upgrade advantages, I can run in, kill a few of your roaches, then run out. Meanwhile, as my money builds up I will build an extra hatchery for more larvae, and my own overseers to counter contaminate. So, I think creates a situation in which you'll have slightly higher food, while I'll be ahead in upgrades. We'll both be contaminating each other, so some surplus money is to be expected. However, while you can deal with insufficient larva by building a macro hatch, you can only upgrade attack or carapace one level at a time, so you'll be constantly behind in upgrades (unless you contaminate, of course!). You might be able to devise a clever attack time to take advantage of this situation, but for a longer game I think I'd prefer having an upgrade advantage. Hatch first I go hatch first only if the ground distance is reasonably long e.g. I scout close air on metalopolis, so I throw the hatch down. From here, if I don't see an expansion from you (overlord over natural), I'll start a couple of spines at my natural and scout out your base. If I see drones, I cancel the spines. If I see units or the roach warren, I let the spines finish, and maybe add a couple more later on. Personally, I stop droning until ling speed finishes regardless of what I scout. To be honest, I don't know the specific timings as I don't encounter this rush very often, but I think that it's something that can be barely held off while holding an economic advantage. Having the economic advantage, I should be able win from here provided I don't react too poorly to your overseer strategy, which will be less effective because of my 2 hatches. 1 Base Speedling This is the build I use the most. I stop droning at 15/16, get ling speed and start my banelings nest. I run 1 ling into your base, spot the roach warren then cancel the baneling nest, while making my own roach warren. Once I have a decent number of lings, any roach rush by you is an all in, as my lings will run in and destroy your economy if you leave your base with slow roaches. Having forced you to play defensively, I can mass drone. Typically, I will have a bit of an economic advantage in this situation. From here, I play it out the same way as the other builds. Other thoughts I just remembered, for every few contaminates, a queen saves enough more energy to transfuse roaches. Could be useful on defence to hold off special midgame timing attacks based on this build. | ||
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Synystyr
United States1446 Posts
On February 26 2011 05:12 Saracen wrote: It's always been pretty standard in ZvZ midgame to get an overseer or two for detection and contamination. Discussion about it started back in the beta: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=126855. I don't know why every time Day[9] covers something, people assume it's new and revolutionary just because they've never encountered it before. The proper response is adding another hatchery in your main or nat. I'm quite aware that this has been around for a while, but we really haven't seen any groundbreaking use for it, and it has such a potential to change how the match up is played. I'm just trying to be an advocate to this. There are others who haven't seen this before, so it's not a terrible thing to enlighten them. To everyone else, most of these responses have been really high quality and show me that my opener is just not optimal at all. What changes do people want to see in the OP? Is a speedling expand opener more viable? I still believe that just a few overseers are well worth their cost in gas, the production halt make up for that. I'm perfectly willing to scrap my entire build and re-write it from scratch so that it's more functional. I'm no Zerg gosu so you guys are my go to people! Thanks a bunch ^^ | ||
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MoreFaSho
United States1427 Posts
On February 26 2011 03:34 RageQuitter wrote: I think this would be a solid build if you used Contaminate in conjunction with a timing push. Also, if they get 2 queens at each base you are pretty much hopeless because two queens can easily down an Overseer. So if a Zerg gets two queens then you wasted all that gas which will probably lose you the game. The very idea behind contaminate + timing push is suspicious to me. A good timing attack will put all your possible resources into the attack logically, 100 gas is a lot of gas to be missing and if you have the gas to spend that means you probably weren't mining enough minerals early and you have fewer units than you could or are delaying your push. I guess it might be possible to create a timing out of this, but its' a lot of resources so I'm skeptical for the reasons listed above. The essence of a refined build is that there's on room for these extra pieces. | ||
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majestouch
United States395 Posts
background: i'm a 3400 masters zerg and avid day9 viewer/contributer (i'm teh bluewaffle aka parasite01 in chat) my 1base zvz contaminate build is tailored SPECIFICALLY for Xel Naga Caverns and I have over a 90% win rate with the build and the games I lose are due to greediness. The general build order is as follows: drone till 10 pool (10) drone (9) [rally this drone to the closest geyser] send another drone to geyser and double gas trick--build 2 drones [cancel gases] (10/10) overlord (12/10) when overlord pops: build 2 sets of lings (12/18) then a queen, then the next 2 set of lings totaling 6 lings overlord (17/18) extractor (17/18) [note gas finishes when lings are 70% to ur opponent's base] 2nd queen (18/26) [note first queen finishes when your lings are 60-80% to ur opponent's base] harass while continually building drones back home (i don't keep track of food counts after 2nd queen) build a third queen and start 2nd geyser @ same time. wall off w/ 2 queens (you can wall off w/ queens b4 a bling agression would hit) start lair as soon as 3rd queen finishes: roach warren keep droning till about 38 food and have 3 spare overlords when lair finishes. if you opponent is 1basing, make 3 overseers if they are 2basing, make 4. begin roach speed. continually: contaminate, pump roaches, and overlords and hit a timing attack around 8:30-10min now you may say: what are counters to this? currently, I haven't really found any. The reaction of every opening by Z: 6-8 pool: you have more econ and can get lings out by the time they get to your base--you auto win 9-10 pool: they are probally just opening roach and trying to score a few drone kills. too bad you have lings. 11-12pool: they are doing some sort of baneling opening and your attack will slow it down enough to have 2 queens to block ramp thus negating it 14gas/14pool: they are most likely opening sling bling and you will have 2 queens to block ramp by the time the bligns would pop, moreover, typically they feel threatened and drop a spine and you get 3 drone kills then you can gtfo with your lings thus killing 3 drones, and forcing a spine (another drone) so they technically in the whole 300 minerals (4drones + 1 spine). 15hatch/whateverafterthis: you score 4-8 drone kills depending on if they went gas or pool first and you simply have a much better econ (remember your droning back home the whole time). now you may ask: how does this defend against 1base muta? great question... you see, since you made 3 queens early on and 5 mutas don't have very good dps, you will have roughly 7 transfuses available with 3 queens therefore easily owning their attack. incorporate burrow into this as well and you can just burrow roaches as they take dmg. now you're prlly thinking, can i see some replays of this uberpwnage action? well bygallygosh you can! note: the newer the replay, the more refined the build ofc. http://replayfu.com/r/5r1BQj [newest] http://replayfu.com/r/tmRjPp http://replayfu.com/r/p8RmDt http://replayfu.com/r/pH7BVm [oldest] So now I'm sure you're wondering well how do I do this when both players open 15hatch?!?!?! Guide incomming soon. And I should of prlly just started my own thread seeing that well ya.. | ||
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BinxyBrown
United States230 Posts
Contaminate on a whole is very useful and sneaking a few in can slow down your opponent massively, if you are in a macro war with someone, its definitely viable to get 1 overseer per hatch until they have hydras or mutas and too many queens to make it worth while, it can pay for itself after only one or two contaminates. | ||
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