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I appreciate the clear answers to my questions. That first window can be pretty narrow with those first 22 lings though. As far as the build order optimizer goes, it would be helpful to post the numbers for hatch first, just to compare?
Angel, no matter what the zerg is doing he needs to be spending all the larva. Your point about not needing it to be a race to 80 before you start playing is true, but even if you build units you still don't want those larva sitting.
I think theres definitely a spot for a build to punish the hatch first, I just don't think this is it. I think it tries to be a hybrid of cheese/macro, and in doing so you wind up weakening both the attack and your economy. Its true that when you are in his base with the lings you can drone behind it, you are just catching up to him, because he already has the drones, and theyve been mining longer, and he is still adding drones while you are catching up. So unless you kill him outright or do some serious damage, it isn't looking good. It seems like if you want to really punish hatch first you need to hit either earlier or harder.
There are reasons why someone might not want the game to go long, and one way or another with this build I don't see the game going long. Maybe some of these reasons could be addressed?
Edit: Just watched this and wanted to add that DRG v Idra is definitely worth watching if you want aggressive ZvZ. Definitely an example of the things I am talking about in this post. Just got posted today.
http://sc2casts.com/cast8155-IdrA-vs-Dongraegu-Best-of-3-All-in-1-video-EG-Masters-Cup-EG-vs-Complexity
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On April 20 2012 02:08 rikter wrote:
I appreciate the clear answers to my questions. That first window can be pretty narrow with those first 22 lings though. As far as the build order optimizer goes, it would be helpful to post the numbers for hatch first, just to compare?
Angel, no matter what the zerg is doing he needs to be spending all the larva. Your point about not needing it to be a race to 80 before you start playing is true, but even if you build units you still don't want those larva sitting.
I think theres definitely a spot for a build to punish the hatch first, I just don't think this is it. I think it tries to be a hybrid of cheese/macro, and in doing so you wind up weakening both the attack and your economy. Its true that when you are in his base with the lings you can drone behind it, you are just catching up to him, because he already has the drones, and theyve been mining longer, and he is still adding drones while you are catching up. So unless you kill him outright or do some serious damage, it isn't looking good. It seems like if you want to really punish hatch first you need to hit either earlier or harder.
There are reasons why someone might not want the game to go long, and one way or another with this build I don't see the game going long. Maybe some of these reasons could be addressed?
It's a very small window to punish hatch first, but it does exist. What's good about this build is that you do get a good amount of speedlings out, and speedlings are very very good at punishing sloppy, greedy, or bad play, and hatch first is already a pretty intricate build to play perfectly. A lot of this build is in the execution and it's sad to say but many zerg players don't keep their queens on hold position when they are blocking the ramp, which lets you get the surround followed by the all in to win.
There are tons of situations that the ling player can take advantage of, in the end there is almost never a point where my initial lings are useless. Also its good to note that those 22 lings often do damage, either in killing a queen or in forcing zerglings out of the opponent rather than drones. If he went banelings then its all micro which can go either way. I'm not the best at micro, but its fairly simple micro and the whole ling bling situation should be familiar for all zerg players.
I've also noticed that if the zerg player committed to the spine queen defense that they haven't really started getting any extra income from their hatch first, which is a bit of a window to catch up. I've often found that with aggressive scouting that it's easy to catch up in drone count, many times its because my queens have been injecting full time where his might be on the ramp for one or two inject rounds. In my experience ZvZ is such a sensitive match up that economic leads go back and fourth, it's usually whoever can hold their third first when a lead becomes pretty solid. Unless you mess up your micro and lose everything to two blings - or did no damage - you can still have a good game if the first 22 lings didn't outright give you a win situation.
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On April 20 2012 04:03 CaptTerrible wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2012 02:08 rikter wrote:
I appreciate the clear answers to my questions. That first window can be pretty narrow with those first 22 lings though. As far as the build order optimizer goes, it would be helpful to post the numbers for hatch first, just to compare?
Angel, no matter what the zerg is doing he needs to be spending all the larva. Your point about not needing it to be a race to 80 before you start playing is true, but even if you build units you still don't want those larva sitting.
I think theres definitely a spot for a build to punish the hatch first, I just don't think this is it. I think it tries to be a hybrid of cheese/macro, and in doing so you wind up weakening both the attack and your economy. Its true that when you are in his base with the lings you can drone behind it, you are just catching up to him, because he already has the drones, and theyve been mining longer, and he is still adding drones while you are catching up. So unless you kill him outright or do some serious damage, it isn't looking good. It seems like if you want to really punish hatch first you need to hit either earlier or harder.
There are reasons why someone might not want the game to go long, and one way or another with this build I don't see the game going long. Maybe some of these reasons could be addressed? It's a very small window to punish hatch first, but it does exist. What's good about this build is that you do get a good amount of speedlings out, and speedlings are very very good at punishing sloppy, greedy, or bad play, and hatch first is already a pretty intricate build to play perfectly. A lot of this build is in the execution and it's sad to say but many zerg players don't keep their queens on hold position when they are blocking the ramp, which lets you get the surround followed by the all in to win. There are tons of situations that the ling player can take advantage of, in the end there is almost never a point where my initial lings are useless. Also its good to note that those 22 lings often do damage, either in killing a queen or in forcing zerglings out of the opponent rather than drones. If he went banelings then its all micro which can go either way. I'm not the best at micro, but its fairly simple micro and the whole ling bling situation should be familiar for all zerg players. I've also noticed that if the zerg player committed to the spine queen defense that they haven't really started getting any extra income from their hatch first, which is a bit of a window to catch up. I've often found that with aggressive scouting that it's easy to catch up in drone count, many times its because my queens have been injecting full time where his might be on the ramp for one or two inject rounds. In my experience ZvZ is such a sensitive match up that economic leads go back and fourth, it's usually whoever can hold their third first when a lead becomes pretty solid. Unless you mess up your micro and lose everything to two blings - or did no damage - you can still have a good game if the first 22 lings didn't outright give you a win situation.
You can punish sloppy play for sure. Btw, the extra spines in the 3 queen build are made in response to scouting, not blind, so the resources aren't wasted. Defending comes down to managing the queens, not just hold position, but having energy for transfuse. No or poor transfuses make it hard to hold. I'll bet you could beat the same person with this a few times in a row, but once they figure out how to hold it, you will never beat them again with it. If you use this build regularly, you are just going to get promoted to the league that has the people who can beat this, and then what? Learn how to play more complicated games on the fly against people much better than you?
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On April 20 2012 04:52 rikter wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2012 04:03 CaptTerrible wrote:On April 20 2012 02:08 rikter wrote:
I appreciate the clear answers to my questions. That first window can be pretty narrow with those first 22 lings though. As far as the build order optimizer goes, it would be helpful to post the numbers for hatch first, just to compare?
Angel, no matter what the zerg is doing he needs to be spending all the larva. Your point about not needing it to be a race to 80 before you start playing is true, but even if you build units you still don't want those larva sitting.
I think theres definitely a spot for a build to punish the hatch first, I just don't think this is it. I think it tries to be a hybrid of cheese/macro, and in doing so you wind up weakening both the attack and your economy. Its true that when you are in his base with the lings you can drone behind it, you are just catching up to him, because he already has the drones, and theyve been mining longer, and he is still adding drones while you are catching up. So unless you kill him outright or do some serious damage, it isn't looking good. It seems like if you want to really punish hatch first you need to hit either earlier or harder.
There are reasons why someone might not want the game to go long, and one way or another with this build I don't see the game going long. Maybe some of these reasons could be addressed? It's a very small window to punish hatch first, but it does exist. What's good about this build is that you do get a good amount of speedlings out, and speedlings are very very good at punishing sloppy, greedy, or bad play, and hatch first is already a pretty intricate build to play perfectly. A lot of this build is in the execution and it's sad to say but many zerg players don't keep their queens on hold position when they are blocking the ramp, which lets you get the surround followed by the all in to win. There are tons of situations that the ling player can take advantage of, in the end there is almost never a point where my initial lings are useless. Also its good to note that those 22 lings often do damage, either in killing a queen or in forcing zerglings out of the opponent rather than drones. If he went banelings then its all micro which can go either way. I'm not the best at micro, but its fairly simple micro and the whole ling bling situation should be familiar for all zerg players. I've also noticed that if the zerg player committed to the spine queen defense that they haven't really started getting any extra income from their hatch first, which is a bit of a window to catch up. I've often found that with aggressive scouting that it's easy to catch up in drone count, many times its because my queens have been injecting full time where his might be on the ramp for one or two inject rounds. In my experience ZvZ is such a sensitive match up that economic leads go back and fourth, it's usually whoever can hold their third first when a lead becomes pretty solid. Unless you mess up your micro and lose everything to two blings - or did no damage - you can still have a good game if the first 22 lings didn't outright give you a win situation. You can punish sloppy play for sure. Btw, the extra spines in the 3 queen build are made in response to scouting, not blind, so the resources aren't wasted. Defending comes down to managing the queens, not just hold position, but having energy for transfuse. No or poor transfuses make it hard to hold. I'll bet you could beat the same person with this a few times in a row, but once they figure out how to hold it, you will never beat them again with it. If you use this build regularly, you are just going to get promoted to the league that has the people who can beat this, and then what? Learn how to play more complicated games on the fly against people much better than you?
I'm not at the point where I play the same people over and over again on ladder so it's not much of a worry for me. I'll also let you know when people start holding this play regularly, as for now most of low master up to and through mid master still don't play well against this build. As for learning to play complicated games I generally leave that to practicing with friends in custom games. But back to the subject, this build works really well through at least half of masters on ladder, and around my level I've found it doesn't put you extremely behind unless you completely forget your mechanics. I've only encountered this 3 queen defense twice on ladder, I'd like to look more into that if you got links to replays or free vods.
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On April 20 2012 06:02 CaptTerrible wrote:
I'm not at the point where I play the same people over and over again on ladder so it's not much of a worry for me. I'll also let you know when people start holding this play regularly, as for now most of low master up to and through mid master still don't play well against this build. As for learning to play complicated games I generally leave that to practicing with friends in custom games. But back to the subject, this build works really well through at least half of masters on ladder, and around my level I've found it doesn't put you extremely behind unless you completely forget your mechanics. I've only encountered this 3 queen defense twice on ladder, I'd like to look more into that if you got links to replays or free vods.
yeah i agree i'm mid-high diamond with a 75% win percentage using this build over the last two seasons, and i would say that about half of the games do not end with the initial ling push. this build isn't a free ticket to masters, you need to be able to hold early pools and transition to and play the midgame at a competent level, which requires mechanical and decision making ability on par with your opponent. there is noone who is in a higher level that they deserve to be because they play this ZvZ style lol, im not sure what the other guy is trying to argue...
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On February 09 2012 08:43 Angel_ wrote:
This actually seems like a good place to ask this:
Why is it that there are only two zerg players I can think of that don't treat thier play as, "I must be as greedy as humanly possible"? Why are there no zerg players that get some drones, and then units, or spend some of thier larva on workers, and some on units, instead of this I SHALL GET 80 DRONES AND THEN MAKE UNITS UNLESS I HAVE TO MAKE UNITS BEFORE HAND? Why are no zerg players just happy at less than 50 for a while and getting more later? And secondly why are there not a lot of zerg players that relentlessly make sure they never have 7 larva at any hatch for more than a few seconds, and just play hyper aggressive all game long. The only one close to that I can think of is....Julyzerg.
And don't answer "Because that's the way that zerg has to play". That's a stupid answer. It's certainly A way to play, but it isn't THE way.
I know I'm a bit late for answering this question, but I'll give my two cents anyhow.
To me, the greatest advantage that zerg has in a macro-based play style is that their production capability is much like a rubber band. By droning hard and hitting injects, you are tightening the band so that you can snap back at your opponent in the perfect moment.
If you drone too hard, the rubber band is liable to snap back at you and your opponent will crush through.
If you go middle of the road (some drones and some units) you may never get the critical tension you need to snap your opponent.
ZvZ, is interesting, because this game mechanic is available to both players. Thus, there is a delicate balance of tension. The winner is usually the player that manages to keep his play just a bit tighter.
On the other hand, very aggressive play attempts to somewhat bypass this game mechanic. Heavy aggression prevents your opponent from reaching the critical tension he needs to kill you, meanwhile you are building the momentum you need to crush though.
I think in ZvZ it is nice to be capable of both play styles, and I have had success in both.
 isclaimer:
I am a low league player, so I will avoid talking about specific strategies. But, I do appreciate the basics of SC2 game mechanics. I like the way things work in this game, and I like to visualize game mechanics in appealing ways (zerg with rubber band macro, protoss as a brick layer sealing up the cracks, terran as a clock with giant fist instead of a cuckoo bird)
Understanding how your race (and others) works in an intuitive sense gives me personally a greater incentive to work on my basic mechanics. I know if my macro is solid, I can use the advantages of my race to crush my opponent. Thus, I can play the game successfully without focusing on the flawless execution of specific strategies.
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Just so y'all know, Stephano drone scouts ZvZ... Here are some video series that feature things I have been asking about. They are all in ones, and the total length is an hour, so I dont want to embed them here.
http://sc2casts.com/cast8162-Stephano-vs-NEXLife-Best-of-3-All-in-1-video-Iron-Squid-Group-Stage (Drone scout)
http://sc2casts.com/cast8155-IdrA-vs-Dongraegu-Best-of-3-All-in-1-video-EG-Masters-Cup-EG-vs-Complexity (Games feature: a 14/14, an early pool, a hatch first into 3 queens gets busted
http://sc2casts.com/cast8096-IdrA-vs-Symbol-Best-of-3-All-in-1-video-Iron-Squid-Group-Stage (Hatch first into 3 queens)
It surprises me that you could win such a high percentage of the games against masters competition, thats all. Given the way the game decides the leagues based on your relative ability, I would have thought the ceiling for this build would be lower than masters. Since GM is so exclusive anyways, a masters ceiling isn't really a ceiling at all, so you have managed to convince me that even though in theory this should be held easily, for whatever reason it is not happening in practice enough to be a deterrent.
The games I watch all seem to feature either hatch first into an attack between 6-7min, or super early pool. Tangs build gets the first queen out quicker, but hatch first gets the second and third queens faster, and its the third queen I think that is key to holding against this. You must have transfuses for the spine crawler(s). Watch DRG v Idra, Idra pushes at 630 with ten roaches and ten lings. DRG has crawlers up, but his queens are dry when Idra hits and once the crawlers go down its tough. Gotta manage that queen energy. To punish hatch first the pros pool earlier than this. Watch the vids posted above.
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I dont see how viable this build can be, I see zerg everyday on ladder do this kind of thing to me, I outmicro them with lings and banes and they rage quit .
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On April 20 2012 08:31 rikter wrote:Just so y'all know, Stephano drone scouts ZvZ... Here are some video series that feature things I have been asking about. They are all in ones, and the total length is an hour, so I dont want to embed them here. http://sc2casts.com/cast8162-Stephano-vs-NEXLife-Best-of-3-All-in-1-video-Iron-Squid-Group-Stage (Drone scout) http://sc2casts.com/cast8155-IdrA-vs-Dongraegu-Best-of-3-All-in-1-video-EG-Masters-Cup-EG-vs-Complexity (Games feature: a 14/14, an early pool, a hatch first into 3 queens gets busted http://sc2casts.com/cast8096-IdrA-vs-Symbol-Best-of-3-All-in-1-video-Iron-Squid-Group-Stage (Hatch first into 3 queens) It surprises me that you could win such a high percentage of the games against masters competition, thats all. Given the way the game decides the leagues based on your relative ability, I would have thought the ceiling for this build would be lower than masters. Since GM is so exclusive anyways, a masters ceiling isn't really a ceiling at all, so you have managed to convince me that even though in theory this should be held easily, for whatever reason it is not happening in practice enough to be a deterrent. The games I watch all seem to feature either hatch first into an attack between 6-7min, or super early pool. Tangs build gets the first queen out quicker, but hatch first gets the second and third queens faster, and its the third queen I think that is key to holding against this. You must have transfuses for the spine crawler(s). Watch DRG v Idra, Idra pushes at 630 with ten roaches and ten lings. DRG has crawlers up, but his queens are dry when Idra hits and once the crawlers go down its tough. Gotta manage that queen energy. To punish hatch first the pros pool earlier than this. Watch the vids posted above.
If you open up hatch first it is pretty common to drone scout to win against the really early pool cheeses that are around. There is an extremely comprehensive guide out there about hatch first play against 6/7/8 pools and how to beat the cheese, but the main thing is the drone scout to tell what kind of all in is coming. With pool first builds I don't feel the need to drone scout since my lings will be out quicker, all I want to know is if my opponent opened pool first or hatch first and an overlord suffices for that.
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On April 20 2012 08:31 rikter wrote:
Just so y'all know, Stephano drone scouts ZvZ...
If he was planning to open with pool before hatch, he wouldn't scout. I believe he drone-scouted in that game with the intention of going hatch-first.
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Edit to add:
http://sc2casts.com/cast8134-NesTea-vs-Stephano-Best-of-3-IPL-4-Winners-Round
Another great series, featuring a proxy spine rush! This just came out today. So it seems like maybe I wasn't so far off base with my original comments. Even if they may not apply all the time, all of them have popped up in these very recent casts of ZvZ at a high level, on a big stage.
So while you wouldn't want to cut any more economy in this particular build, it's not as if it has no place in the matchup, as was alleged in some earlier posts. Given the recent pro games, maybe looking at hatch-first with multiple queens would be worth putting in the guide, at the very least to talk about how this build matches up against it.
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On April 21 2012 00:51 rikter wrote:Edit to add: http://sc2casts.com/cast8134-NesTea-vs-Stephano-Best-of-3-IPL-4-Winners-RoundAnother great series, featuring a proxy spine rush! This just came out today. So it seems like maybe I wasn't so far off base with my original comments. Even if they may not apply all the time, all of them have popped up in these very recent casts of ZvZ at a high level, on a big stage. So while you wouldn't want to cut any more economy in this particular build, it's not as if it has no place in the matchup, as was alleged in some earlier posts. Given the recent pro games, maybe looking at hatch-first with multiple queens would be worth putting in the guide, at the very least to talk about how this build matches up against it.
That was an early pool spine rush, very different from opening 14 or 15pool and trying to spine rush. Hatch first into multiple queens is standard, what you first proposed was hatch first into 3 queen 2 spine before the 6min mark, which is way too large of a mineral investment that early.
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I really love this build. Now after reading the battle next future balance changes.
Queens will have 50 Starting energy. This means that in the early game 4 queen blocks will be much harder to stop?
What do you think? In all fairness you could save the extra 25 energy and have 2 injects for ur hatcheries when your natural pops. but again 4 queen/2 spine blocks could be hard to hold against.
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I just 14 14 ling bane pressure, an drone behind it and once im satisfied i got for plus 1 timming attack expo behind it. i never be to greedy and go for a quick 3rd just cause i like playing safer than riskier.
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On May 03 2012 14:40 RimJaynor wrote:
I really love this build. Now after reading the battle next future balance changes.
Queens will have 50 Starting energy. This means that in the early game 4 queen blocks will be much harder to stop?
What do you think? In all fairness you could save the extra 25 energy and have 2 injects for ur hatcheries when your natural pops. but again 4 queen/2 spine blocks could be hard to hold against.
i did spanishiwa since i played zerg until i got into high masters, it doesent work, if they see 4 queens an never attack an take a quick third you just lose. i might be able to see if you went for speedlings still but idk how that would work out since you would have to make all that stuff like the spines an 4 queens. but idk i can only see this build work if you hatch first and then 14 pool an get lucky by making only queens but if he goes for 14 14 hes gonnan speedlng pressure with like 22 lings or so and 8ish before speed.
what im trying to say is its possible but any cheese and i dont think i will work would have to test it to an extent at least before trying it on the ladder
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On May 03 2012 14:40 RimJaynor wrote:
I really love this build. Now after reading the battle next future balance changes.
Queens will have 50 Starting energy. This means that in the early game 4 queen blocks will be much harder to stop?
What do you think? In all fairness you could save the extra 25 energy and have 2 injects for ur hatcheries when your natural pops. but again 4 queen/2 spine blocks could be hard to hold against.
The 50-energy buff would have made attacks like this significantly weaker, but luckily they didn't go through with this change. Queens with additional range won't make the largest difference against speedlings.
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On May 04 2012 00:07 izual155 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2012 14:40 RimJaynor wrote:
I really love this build. Now after reading the battle next future balance changes.
Queens will have 50 Starting energy. This means that in the early game 4 queen blocks will be much harder to stop?
What do you think? In all fairness you could save the extra 25 energy and have 2 injects for ur hatcheries when your natural pops. but again 4 queen/2 spine blocks could be hard to hold against.
i did spanishiwa since i played zerg until i got into high masters, it doesent work, if they see 4 queens an never attack an take a quick third you just lose. i might be able to see if you went for speedlings still but idk how that would work out since you would have to make all that stuff like the spines an 4 queens. but idk i can only see this build work if you hatch first and then 14 pool an get lucky by making only queens but if he goes for 14 14 hes gonnan speedlng pressure with like 22 lings or so and 8ish before speed. what im trying to say is its possible but any cheese and i dont think i will work would have to test it to an extent at least before trying it on the ladder
The "spanishiwa" style of going zero-gas until full saturation has lost popularity for that reason - opponents will have complete map control with their speedlings, and be able to take a much earlier 3rd with no fear of losing it. If someone build 4 queens and 3 spines at their expansion, I would cut speedlings at 30~ supply and transition into earlier upgrades, a faster 3rd, and more drones.
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Thank you very much for this. I absolutely love your aggressive tips. I don't care so much if they aren't the absolutely most effective way of playing, but heck, I wouldn't know anyway. I'm just some Gold Zerg that probably should be in Silver or Bronze. But aggressive play works for me, and there's no reason to fix what isn't broken.
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I've been getting a bit bored of unholy macro zerg play recently, mainly coz it feels like I'm endlessly defending and once BL do pop my opponent gg's. So this is a nice strat to play with.
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On May 11 2012 23:52 ChaZzza wrote:
I've been getting a bit bored of unholy macro zerg play recently, mainly coz it feels like I'm endlessly defending and once BL do pop my opponent gg's. So this is a nice strat to play with.
I've opened with this style and made it to broodlords! There is a lot of room to read between the lines with a style like this, it's just my own personal preference to be aggressive all game long.
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EPT
