[G] An aggressive path in ZvP

"I love mutas and have been looking for a way to incorporate them into my ZvP with no luck but this looks interesting, I'lll definately give it a go" vol_

"I have been using this and while im a plat zerg, i have been beating master protoss:" DanLegend

"Good post, well written post!" Grendel

"It's very encouraging to see a strategy that has a chance to work as a general principle rather than some kind of ten-second rush window." Umpteen

"big up mapco for sharing this!" enykie

"Macpo, this is awesome. I played around with it a bunch yesterday, first against the AI to get used to the build and then vs a practice partner to see how well I could pull it off against a real opponent. I went 2-2 against him with this build. I tried it 4 times straight, just to give it a shot, without caring what build my practice buddy was using. I even told him I was going to use this build every time, and he still lost to it twice(he thought I was joking about doing this a bunch). He said 15+ hydras and lings were a real shock because other zergs just don't do this kind of thing."
ZombiesOMG


"tryed your Strat in a game on Xelnaga and it worked wonders!" Tumor

"just watched some of the replays, it seems to me that the transition from a hydra force to trade out some of his ground army into a quick muta follow up is really good." DoT_TL

"thank you man nice strategy!" Bleez

"Who's awesome? OP's awesome." tGhOeOoDry

"just want to say I showed this thread to some of my Zerg friends who've tried it out against me in practice, and its quite, quite nasty." awesomoecalypse

"today i got a protoss in a ladder session and i tried this strategy out the first time and i rly have to say that after playing it, it feels pretty damn nice" eliquo



"I like the idea behind this, like "if your opponent is doing or might be doing something you can't deal with, just kill him before he does it"."
fenX

Am I a victim of the macro zerg symptom? here is a simple test to detect the most pathological situations:

1.





2.





More precisely:

3. When I close my eyes and think about "protoss" ,



If you say yes to two of the three questions, time has come for treatment.

Yes! you got it: MACRO. We are all victims of the now infamous macro zerg syndrom. Let's change our metagame habits, and start thinking about aggression.

The frame is a very classical speedling into expand, as follows.
14 gas, 14 pool
@100% pool, queen and speed + remove 2 drones from gas. make 2 sets of zerlings.
21/22 expand, followed by a second queen. drones until 26 food. Don't forget ovies.

First, make sure you are in the expected situation, i.e. that the toss is not 4 gating or 1 base delayed pushing. It's pretty easy to scout for a 4 gate. To scout for a three gate expand (from the 6th mn), the main signs are: not much cybernetic core chronoboost, some sentries.

When you are waiting for the expand, there are three possibilities:
1. early expand: you don't need to make zerglings, but you can do it, to put pressure (it'll bring you to the most aggressive variations of the build).
2. late expand: you shall make zerglings until you clearly see the expand.
3. no expand: after some point waiting for an expand that is not coming, go for lair tech, make hydras anyway and wait for a 1 base delayed push. Things should be fine.

Generally you will have some lings.

THE FIRST WAVE is ready to hit. This wave is a small wave, just to put pressure. War starts not in a roar but in a whisper.

just harass with zerglings while going to step II, to delay his expand, kill some sentries if possible, whatever you can do. But don't loose your zerglings please… because they will be very helpful later.

(Generally speaking, when waiting for the expand, remember that you can delay a bit your builds, for instance by building overlords until 52 or 60 food, before making units or drones, etc. so that you can choose with enough information.)

When you see the expand you have two bases with two queens, you are at around 20/21 drones, have a bunch of zerglings, and one guy mining gas, From this point until the 11 mn hydra push, precise BO recommendations don't make sense.

Just:
- go to lair (you should have enough gas, with the drone left),
- get your FOUR gases. There are some hydra push with only two gases, but as you want to get a spire, you'd better get four. Not necessarily at once. I would recommend to put back 3 guys in gas, build one other gas, make a round of drones, and build two other gases. But don't take your gases too late.
Gas timing is important as (with number of initial zerlings) it will make your build more or less aggressive, more or less ground or air-based.
- get drones.:
In the most aggressive variations you can just make around 12 drones more (i.e. one round and a half on two bases with larva injections). The most macro oriented variations will bring you to around 50 drones(that will bring you to 4 bases plans).

- After your lair has finished, go for hydra den. produce some hydras and zerglings. (all these steps may well overlap! that's no big deal).

The interest of hydras is that they will counter air attacks + deal reasonably well with sentries (as opposed to roaches). The timing of hydra range will depend on the amount of pressure the toss puts on you, as you may want to have some hydras quicker, instead of range. But it is necessary to have it for the push.If possible hide your hydra den with overlord creep; and your hydras too. Spread creep for hydras' speed. (possibly use some overlords to create a path to the opponent's base).

During this period, you may face some attacks from the protoss or more likely "pressure" (as early gate pressure or starport pressure); most of them will be done easily thanks to hydras. Things to have in mind: a void ray is really good news, as you will smash it with hydras and counter easily. Phoenixes are more difficult to deal with. as they will pick up hydras one by one. yet, against air pressure, you will have a strong advantage if you push in his natural. Against early gateway units pressure, don't let them leave for free if you can smash them, while they are "pretending to attack".

THE SECOND WAVE IS READY. I guess a good number is around 12/15 hydras and 30/50 zerglings around 10th minut. Make the hydras go first, and pump lings to join them on the road to your opponent natural. You should be in his base at around 10:30/11. Later you would meet colossi.

Don't mess up your second attack. This one is not harassment, you are going to inflict serious damage. The difficulty is to deal correctly with forcefields, so that you don't get completely blocked off for 15 or 30 secs. Generally this is not the case, because of hydras range. Some advice: avoid narrow roads, small chokes (higher positions in metalopolis for instance; scrap station small road, shakuras plateaux). Destroy units first, not buildings, and don't let them retreat in the back of their base. There is yet a key building to target, if you can: the cybernetic core, to prepare the following wave.

Sometimes you will win at this stage. Yet, the objective is not that high. The objective is the following: if at the end of the push, the protoss player has no more stalkers (for instance if the fight ends up in a draw), you are more than fine, because mutas are coming.

(You may want to make a round of drones just after your second wave . That's up to you! if you want to be aggressive or not.)

THE THIRD WAVE IS READY:

These mutas should really be arriving a couple of seconds after your 2nd wave has ended. The number of mutas you make will depend on your gas timings earlier, but to give an idea, it should be between 8 and 15. In my opinion, this is very efficient.
Become protoss for a second. You hold with difficulty some push, you don’t have much left, but the zerg apparently lost most of his army too; your colossi went out, you still have two bases mining. And yet, you see 12 mutas in your mineral line, against which colossi are completely useless.

I have experienced many psychological reactions here: rage quit complains about zerg is OP and so on… But not always, so stay focused.

Basically, there are two ways.

You have been very aggressive from the beginning, and you don't have much money to do anything but building mutas (you play with 30/35 drones, 12 of which are in gas). Then, just constantly reproduce mutas and harass until victory, that works pretty well.

If you took the more macro-oriented strat, you can probably take one or two expands (don't hesitate to take two!). Actually, you have to do it to pump lings, or otherwise you minerals will just pile up, cause muta/lings is larva intensive…

Generally speaking it's a bit better to have long distance positions. it'll avoid the protoss to be too pushy between your waves. One mistake I did in the beginning for instance was to break rocks in scrap station with hydras, which opened the way for good counters from the toss, and weaken my muta harass.
Things are significantly more difficult with narrow chokes (for instance in Shakuras plateaux), but this is not a problem anymore, as anyone knows.