This build in my opinion is one of the most solid macro builds in ZvT at the moment. The key to good macro builds is to be as greedy as possible while remaining safe through scouting which is what Soo did here.
Soo gets his Zergling speed at standard early timing which is necessary, in case Terran goes for reapers. The speed finishes before hellions arrive, which allows him to scare off reapers and grab the third at 5:50.
Hatchery will have enough hit points for hellions to be unable to damage it too much before creep and queens arrive. The Speedlings also allow Soo to prevent any hellion runbys that might try to circumvent the queens.
One other very important thing is the fact that 1 drone stays in the gas which combined with overlord scout at 5:50 gives Soo total safety again.
In case this is some sort of hellbat push, he can immediately react with putting down a baneling nest which should allow countering the push easily if the Zerglings production starts early enough. Alternatively, he can even put a roach warren having enough gas to produce roaches, however this doesn't line up too smoothly into muta play.
In case Terran goes for 3 reaper into 6 hellion timing it might be necessary to build a 4th queen earlier in order to have a little bit more energy and firepower to repel Terran units. Life gives us a nice example when to build 4th and 5th queen in case of reaper opening (he also delays 3rd slightly in comparison to Soo).
Hellions usually arrive sometime after 7:00 mark. This is the moment when it's good to build a pack of Zerglings (about 15) in order to prevent hellion runbys. Skipping them is slightly risky. Soo builds 6 queens. That's a very good number because it allows him to defend against hellions and gives insane number of creep tumors later on proving it's definitely worth to build as many as that. They can also be used as a support against initial medivac pushes from Terran. 3 Queens can target down medivacs pretty fast.
The real beauty of this build however, is the lair timing which comes at the 7:00 minute mark and is not much later than 2 base muta. Despite the cost of this timing slightly delaying the upgrades I would still argue that it's worth it.
Terran of course has ability to be on the offensive once medivacs are out. When Zerg doesn't have mutas, medivacs give Terran an advantage in terms of mobility and map presence. This is the moment when Terran takes over the initiative in the game. By producing the mutas faster Soo cuts this Terran dominance on the map short, which is a pretty important thing in my opinion. This also allows Zerg to spread overlords out on the map sooner, and gives the opportunity to harass. Mutas can also shut down the initial medivac timing attack completely as long as the Zerg didn't take any early economic damage. Later on, the game transitions into just standard ZvT. Now it's the time to let our mechanics shine and beat the Terran with 2-2 timing attack or longer macro game.
15 hatch 16 gas 15 pool 16 overlord 2x queens after pool 2 lings 3:55 Speed 1 drone stays in gas 4:20 Overlord 4:45 Queen, overlord 5:20 Creep tumor 5:30 Overlord 5:50 3rd base 6:00 Queen ~ overlord here 6:20 Gas, 3 overlords -> Soo had supply block there, preferably one overlord earlier and others a bit later 6:30 back to mining gas with all drones in main 6:40 Gas 6:50 2x Evo chambers 7:00 Lair, queen 7:20 some lings - soo made only 4 but preferably a bit more 7:40 Overlord 7:50 Gas, 2x spores - Skip them if opponent doesn't go for banshees. 8:00 +1 +1 attack and carapace 8:10 Queen 8:20 Spire then Baneling nest 9:10 Macro hatch 9:20 2x gas 9:30 Speed for banelings 10:00 ling production 10:20 Muta production 11:00 +2 +2 attack carapace, +1 attack for mutas much more lings 11:30 Another queen 4-6 drones in between Lings and mutas a lot of them 14:00 +2+2 ends, mass banelings and push Terran back
On June 20 2015 06:47 Mistakes wrote: 5 gas total or am I missing something?
When sooO was winning a lot in the GSL, I remember him only making like 6-10 muta tops, then just ALL ling bane, with TONS of bane. I always thought it was strange, but 4 time gsl finals don't lie.
On June 20 2015 06:47 Mistakes wrote: 5 gas total or am I missing something?
When sooO was winning a lot in the GSL, I remember him only making like 6-10 muta tops, then just ALL ling bane, with TONS of bane. I always thought it was strange, but 4 time gsl finals don't lie.
Maybe if he made that 6th gas geyser he would've actually won one of those finals, amirite? Lol.
On June 20 2015 06:47 Mistakes wrote: 5 gas total or am I missing something?
When sooO was winning a lot in the GSL, I remember him only making like 6-10 muta tops, then just ALL ling bane, with TONS of bane. I always thought it was strange, but 4 time gsl finals don't lie.
It's not strange. If you want I might be able to find it somewhere when JohnSC2 made a soO analysis in the HotS Zerg Help Me thread, but the rationale behind that was to have enough Mutas to deflect / pick off Medivacs while having enough ground to actually killing the Terran. From there, he often only made 2-3 Mutas every inject cycle and spent the rest of his gas on Banelings. The bonus of this was that he had a massive ground army which was beneficial to soO's playstyle since he's more of a macro Zerg player and didn't really micro.
On June 20 2015 06:47 Mistakes wrote: 5 gas total or am I missing something?
When sooO was winning a lot in the GSL, I remember him only making like 6-10 muta tops, then just ALL ling bane, with TONS of bane. I always thought it was strange, but 4 time gsl finals don't lie.
Maybe if he made that 6th gas geyser he would've actually won one of those finals, amirite? Lol.
On June 20 2015 06:47 Mistakes wrote: 5 gas total or am I missing something?
When sooO was winning a lot in the GSL, I remember him only making like 6-10 muta tops, then just ALL ling bane, with TONS of bane. I always thought it was strange, but 4 time gsl finals don't lie.
Maybe if he made that 6th gas geyser he would've actually won one of those finals, amirite? Lol.
Most of the finals were vs protoss though
all the other 30 players in GSL those years were just #FiveGasScrubs. if you want to beat the real pros you need that sixth gas
in all seriousness, i've seen jaedong take a fifth gas and not immediately a sixth on stream in zvt, but it wouldn't make any sense to go third gas and then 4+5 later. unless you have some kind of insanely specific game plan, but in zvt that still doesn't make sense
On June 20 2015 06:47 Mistakes wrote: 5 gas total or am I missing something?
When sooO was winning a lot in the GSL, I remember him only making like 6-10 muta tops, then just ALL ling bane, with TONS of bane. I always thought it was strange, but 4 time gsl finals don't lie.
Maybe if he made that 6th gas geyser he would've actually won one of those finals, amirite? Lol.
Most of the finals were vs protoss though
all the other 30 players in GSL those years were just #FiveGasScrubs. if you want to beat the real pros you need that sixth gas
in all seriousness, i've seen jaedong take a fifth gas and not immediately a sixth on stream in zvt, but it wouldn't make any sense to go third gas and then 4+5 later. unless you have some kind of insanely specific game plan, but in zvt that still doesn't make sense
you do 5 gas if you go roach/ling/bane/corruptor, but aside from that, never
EPT
