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Finished last season at 3,2k diamond (Euro).
Just extended my losing streak to twenty games.
Can't upload replays for the moment due to my crappy Internet access. Will try again later.
I'm sorry I really must be stupid but I don't understand how it is possible to get to 44 drone-only pop, and at the same time hold off early aggression.
Any early push destroys me : how am I supposed to beat marines / glings-banes / zealot-stalkers with drones and four queens ? Spines just don't have enough range. If I put them at my nat, the opponnent will just climb my ramp. If I put them at my main, say good bye to my nat. And I can't put them at my ramp because there's no creep in here (though I first spawn a creep tumor with my two initial queens).
My twenty last games have been the same, whatever match-up. First early push, gg. I believe I scout it quite accurately, but how shall I defend with drones only ?
I realize that I shall be extremely comfortable if I survive the early game. Now the problem is that I don't survive it at all.
/edit Thank you Spanishiwa for the input. Will work on these aspects.
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Try watching some of the attached replays to give you a better idea of how to defend early pushes and pressure. It sounds like you're under reacting to the threats. 3 gate sentry expand will need 3 spines, 2 rax will need 1, hellion opener will need 2, gas pool will need 1 then continue adding spines, etc. It's all about eeking out the most economy so that you won't fall behind.
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Thanks for the second reply! I guess the best option for me would be some form of all-in or a single expansion into deathball formation, whether Colossus or Blink Stalker.
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Wow great post with some nice reps. Gonna try this out tonight in some team games. I'm impressed that it can hold off early pressure with no ling speed with so long.
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No ling speed is horrible against hellion harass. I'm doing the 12 gas into 4 reactored helions (finishing @ 5:30) into expo and when - for some reason or another - the poor zerg has no speed, it's a massacre.
I'm not mentioning the drone kills, but the uncomfortable situation he finds himself in, even with 2-3 crawlers and queens blocking ramp.
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love this. i was able to max at 13:30 in a zvp.
edit : forgot to mention i was fully saturated on 4 bases i think. not completely sure about 4th base saturation.
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If his game time works for you, I'd suggest checking out his stream. His play is a nice proof of concept of what can be held with just drones/spines/queens. Even if this style of play isn't ultimately for you, your zerg play will benefit from focusing on just the basic pieces of the race.
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hellion harass can be stopped by building placements and spine positioning. 4 queens can stop this.
also with 2 rax. I have played with this yesterday and it works great. altough im not doing it in ZvZ as my drone micro is very poor when faced with slings allin! overall, i love this build vs T and P.
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On April 05 2011 06:55 danielsan wrote:
No ling speed is horrible against hellion harass. I'm doing the 12 gas into 4 reactored helions (finishing @ 5:30) into expo and when - for some reason or another - the poor zerg has no speed, it's a massacre.
I'm not mentioning the drone kills, but the uncomfortable situation he finds himself in, even with 2-3 crawlers and queens blocking ramp.
If you have a replay, I'd love to see what happened there. As a lowly platinum, a 4 regular hellion harass on this build is pretty trivial to hold. Between creep spread, spine placement, drone control, and (in this build) at least 4 queens. I'd be interested in seeing what about your hellion play was causing problems.
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Your going to have 4 queens which means you can use 2 of them to block your ramp. you can send the drones form your natural to your main and let your spines in your nat kill the hellions. You can also place your buildings so that hellions cant harass the drones in your nat and use your queens to make a wall off.
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I know its not as popular now, but how would do you deal with a blink stalker all in on a map like XNC? Seems like the stalkers would be able to focus unsupported spines until queen energy is exhausted and rape slowlings.
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I love this build a lot. However since adopting it my win rate has dropped to about 1 in 10 XD
I'm currently the bottom ranked person (with any number of points above 0) in my diamond division. It's been a miserable learning experience, but I think i'm beginning to figure it out.
Things that have led to my death with this build:
1. cannons
2. shit getting up my ramp when I forget to block it with queens
3. reflexively "larva inject"ing when my first queen pops instead of dropping that creep tumor
4. ling heavy comp melting to a lot of stuff
5. terran tank pushes
So just some things I still need to work on ^^. That being said I just smashed some dude's 4gate resoundingly. This build is, in my opinion, absolute gold. All my losses can be attributed to shitty macro and poor control (specifically, of infestors, which I have never used). I guess what I'm trying to say here is DON'T GIVE UP! This build takes a little getting used to, but when it works, it works HARD.
I will say that finding a time to plant down a third is my greatest problem right now, since all too often I wind up contained by the time I'm actually making units. Any tips on this?
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@danielsan
I've uploaded a replay showing me fending off the reactor hellion.
@gastro54
I think you're talking about a 3-4 gate + TC blink stalker build. It's extremely all-in, and you can treat it much the same as a 4 gate. The only difference being you need to be extremely conscious of your ramp, as if he gets vision up there by walking in he can blink in and that could be game ending. Blink micro will only get him so far, as shields regeneration will take some time and transfuse will hold you until ling speed and eventually infestor tech.
@gROOT.clever
About contains: it depends on the type. Protoss contains you need drop tech, and sneak the third. Creep spread should be good enough that by the time the third is in any danger you'll have creep there. Against Terran either wait for hive, infestors, nydus, drop, or anything really. It's very situational, you can break most siege contains with just straight ling/queen, or ling bling queen. Stalling for burrow roach is also viable, but IMO just break the contain. He won't have bunkers or buildings because creep takes long enough to recede, so having your queens tank the tank shots with transfuse will let you break it.
cannons are tough. feel free to give up the expansion if you see him over committing (early 3 pylon block at natural + cannon, for example). Take the third if possible, if not just proceed to roach/queen/nydus and use the nydus to break out, expand + deny his natural.
ramp blocks are key, it's terrible  . don't forget hold positioned drones, and a few lings are great for stopping run bys!
yeah.. energy management is pretty critical too, can't drop too many tumors or use the initial energy too greedily unless you know what he's up to.
ling heavy comp is very fragile, you need to be using it as a harass/stall unit as you wait for ultras or broodlords, or you could go for a more mid game oriented play with burrow roaches.
tank pushes are pretty fun to play against, just keep lobbing infested terrans and using your queens to transfuse the base that's being pushed. eventually you'll have hive tech up, or force him to unsiege/catch his marines in a key fungal. if he doesn't make a mistake, and you don't have hive tech, you probably will lose. if you realize hive tech won't be up in time, either nydus or drop to try and shift his focus away from the push on your base.
i like to plant my third as i start unit production, which is right around when lair pops or slightly before that.
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As far as the normal early aggression this build always wins. The timing is such that you have 2-3 spines, 4 queens and the -ability- to churn out slowlings or drones. Your creep will be spread, giving you tons of breathing room. The key is to sneak out those drones, then take all 4 gas and just explode with tech. You have to play super mechanically well to make this work, you must spend all your queen energy from all your queens on creep and larva, every time it gets to 25, until you feel safe enough to bank some transfusions. you must scout the front and know what your opponent is doing, and know immediately when to switch to lings by knowing his army position and composition.
If you get caught off guard with only drones and queens, you aren't scouting properly. It's ok to halt all drone production to churn lings at any point during this build, because you already got full min saturation at main, and you're partway done the natural, it doesn't set you behind THAT much. Once the aggression is foiled (the amount of slowlings you can spam is retarded) you just go back to powering drones. Once you hit lair and get ling speed up, you then have insane economy to push into whatever tech you think you need and your opponent is behind from wasted aggression.
Once again, the key is poking around with scout lings and overlords, and spreading tumors on C/D for the majority of the early game. It takes good mechanics and high APM but it's so, so powerful and based on the power of macro.
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Thank you for posting this and spending the time to make it such a great post. I saw you throwing this at Mr. B on the 12 Weeks stream, and I've been excited about it ever since. The best surprise is probably how enjoyable that was to read. If I could add anything, it would be that you should continue to add to this as you encounter greater resistance. Most people having trouble with it seem to just have mechanical deficiencies come to light. Clearly a hatch first, especially one that drones so high on no gas, isn't going to be the easiest thing to survive on. Great work!
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I've checked your replays and must ask, how you will hold against proper overpool against FE? I mean not that game on xnc, when your opponent send just 2 zerglings, but with full force of 6, when you have still nothing to defend with ... and then just spam zerglings ... he can run to kill your drones to give you chance to defend with them or just eat your expo for free....
Anyway it looks like very good build, but i just don't think it's that much viable in ZvZ ...
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@Pamposek
I'm not sure what you mean by 'proper' overpool. They already cut a ridiculous number of drones to get out those lings. Even if you were unable to defend (although there is more than one replay with early pool builds showing it defending) would they even be ahead by picking off the hatchery? At that point I think you'd be ahead (more drones, and mining for longer + queen).
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Sorry for my bad explain ;-) By proper i meant all in ;-)
I meant against BO like this :
11 Overpool (11th probe is for scouting)
14 queen
16 gas
15 6 zerglings
18 Overlord
... and then spam zerglings , add speed, when you have gas and just more zerglings till enemy is dead. It's about when your spawning pool finishes, you can build 6 zerglings + queen right off the bat. If you are doing 15 or 16 hatch, i try to keep my scouting drone alive and make spine, when are my zerglings about to arrive ...
It's like your replay on xnc, i will have later speed, but more and bigger stream of zerglings. You have more drones, but you just spend 300 minerals + drone on your FE, so it cancels for time being and after that i will not let you mine in peace there ... and even try to put spine you need to kill
When opponent is not going for FE i just switch to something else ...
*EDIT* : Nwm, i just can't put right numbers in BO ;-)
*EDIT II* : I bring this up, because i can't myself defend against this overpool when i FE ... and your replay wasn't exactly what i need to defend against. But i learned there how to defend against cannon rush ;-)
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What a awesome build really loving it 
Only problem is i get 2 addicted to Banelings.
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I love the ZvP drop tech after lair and holding off 4-gate and 2-rax is really effective with this build.
I'm still uncertain going into a ZvZ with it though. I like to be aggressive in ZvZ and this puts me on the defensive until 50+ food!
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EPT
