The Rule of 1-gas ZvT is a build that uses the bare minimum of gas to power up the huge production that Zerg need to mass muta-ling-bane in numbers that can rival the endless Terran bio-mine pushes. You will use a mineral-only defence of mass queens and lings to defend all early aggression and begin covering the map in creep. Meanwhile you use just a single gas geyser to get basics like upgrades started whilst all of your focus is on minerals. Since you focus so much on minerals you can afford to overwhelm aggression whilst massing drones and then suddenly explode into extra gas mining only once all 3 bases are fully saturated on 16+ drones on minerals.
This style jumps straight to the macro game where you have a big income and need to spend well. It will push you to organise your macro cycle and improve your spending. Creep spread is integral to the effectiveness of this style so you will need to focus a lot more on creep than you ever have before! Within a few games with this style you’ll find yourself with hordes of ling-bane swarming your opponent and relentlessly rolling over the top of their pushes… even when floating thousands of unspent minerals! As you get more experience you’ll improve your micro vs mines, learn when and how to use deadly counterattacks and to use any lull in pressure to grow your creep exponentially. Build Order
17 hatch 18 gas 17 pool
Pull off gas at 100 for ling speed
3rd queen ASAP
3:30 3rd hatchery + back on gas
Then start nonstop queen production and put back on gas
Drone super hard
4:45-5:00 2xevo
Fast bane nest at 5:10 this game - being very safe vs a potential hellbat followup
@3-base saturation - take 5 gases
6:00 (your next 100 gas after 1-1 and bane nest) - Lair (very late this game because snute made 4 safety banelings because he wasn’t scouting, he was worried about a big hellbat-marine-medivac attack.
10-12 total queen count, 3 injecting, the rest as your defence/creep squad
4th base + macro hatch (double macro hatch until you get better at spending money) as soon as you have extra money. Should be around 5:00 in most games
Notes, strategy, details
2-2 is a bit late in this game because of late lair and an engagement distracting snute
Maximum 15 mutas: Huge focus on ling-bane
You can go corruptors or infestors → Ultras instead of mutas and this is still an ideal build for those styles. However mutas is the more common approach
In rare situations you can mass mutas very high off this opening and do big counterattacks with them’
Taking the gas: Many players struggle with the mechanics of quickly taking so many gas at once whilst keeping up micro. My favourite method involves bouncing between each base and resetting its drone rally to the minerals whilst dropping the geysers. This way your new drones popping will naturally spread across all 3 bases rather than all running to the 3rd and then having to send them back to your main and natural gas geysers.
Double Macro hatch: When you’re first getting used to the style you will need 2 macro hatcheries and a 4th base all much earlier than you would with other builds. It’s important to get these early because once you hit 66 drones you’ll have an endless hunger for larva to mass out your ling-bane armies
Dumping Queen energy As soon as your macro hatches and 4th base finish you should que up your queens to “dump” a huge amount of injects all at once. This will turn these extra hatcheries into nonstop producing “larva-machines” without you having to learn an APM-inefficient inject cycle where you try to hit all 6 hatches.
Creep-spread Don’t mass tumors - just 2-3 tumors in any one direction is more than enough - focus on spreading active tumors rather than throwing down masses of new tumors. This way you can get into a rhythm and do it regularly and APM-efficiently
Creep-queen hotkey and positioning It’s vital you have a dedicated hotkey to your creep queens. You need to manually target them onto medivacs in the earlygame You need to be able to easily tell them to re-spread creep throughout the entire game After you spread creep always use shift to que them to walk back to a safe area - if you leave your queens exposed on the edge of creep they can easily be sniped by stimmed bio when you’re not watching
Don’t let him pull you around
You need to stop them disrupting your macro so you can focus on your build and spending your income constantly Jump under the medivacs with lings whenever you force them to pickup so they can’t just unload off the edge of creep and poke back in again.
Even small ling counterattacks that you don’t micro heavily can pull your opponents attention away, buying you precious moments to get your macro in order
Clicking small squads of ling-bane into a push edging onto creep is a great way to force a lot of APM and attention away from your opponent - as well as being an efficient way to set off widow mines before the main engagement
Counterattacks
From 150 supply+ direct engagements can become problematic as the marauder wall thickens and the explosive damage of the mines and marines becomes harder to overwhelm. At this point you want to use your mobility to gain advantage rather than attacking in a huge blob into a pre-spread terran army off creep.
Huge ling counterattacks of 50-100 lings have great explosive power. You usually want to hit the natural and try to get some lings into the main on top of the production whilst the rest overwhelm any units at the rally point and clear the natural mineral line. Even the best players will usually react too slowly to raise their depots in time.
You can add banelings in and roll banes into mineral lines however as it hits slower and takes more time to set up it’s harder to master these counterattacks
Stages of Learning:
Stage 1 - Refining the Opening
When you’re first learning you will struggle with building such a fast economy whilst defending pressure Focus just on constant spending of larva and not getting supply blocked whilst spreading creep and defending Drop evos, lair, bane nest, all around the same time when you have the spare APM and money - don’t stress over these being “late” once the economy building is natural you can work on getting these just right
Stage 2 - Rhythm
Stop at 66 drones each game - never go up to the ideal potential worker count of 75-80 drones. Only transfer drones to 4th base onwards as your bases mine out Stay on muta-ling-bane and Lair tech all game. Never go Hive. This will force you to focus on your earlygame buildup and simplify the mid to lategame Allowing you to focus on your creep + production + engagement rhythm and your handling of mutalingbane.
Common Questions:
Isn’t your gas too slow? How will you get enough banelings or mutas to survive?
Lings actually more important mutas/banes can help you defend the first few waves but you’ll be behind on production economy and won’t be able to keep up unless they mess up their spreads vs banes
I can’t spend my money - is this build too advanced for me?
Even GM players can’t spend their money when they first start learning this style - it just takes a bit of practice! I regularly have gold-diamond players first learning this build floating vast amounts of minerals, but still crushing their opponents. Even though your spending won’t be perfect, following this build will push you into strong macro play and teach you to improve drastically at it
Old Guide spoilered under here for posterity's sake: + Show Spoiler +
Edit 20th September 2016: A few small tweaks to the order, but the fundamentals are the same. Sick build, super powerful and something pros have steadily gravitated towards more and more. The efficiency of this style has allowed it to stand the test of time. You also can go mass muta with this as long as you keep trading/finding damage and reducing the liberator count. They only get hard-countered once there's 6+ liberators all together.
Hi TL,
A lot of players have been struggling with ling-bane muta. Players have been saying that it's too weak now because of the larva change and liberators countering mutas. I've been watching a lot of ZvT where players try to play it at both amateur and pro level, and their's been a lot of inefficiencies that don't fit the new economy or strategy of lotv.
Here's a decent macro game of me doing the style. Note it's not perfect execution and following the build order over any replays or vods is usually ideal. (twitch VoD for people in Germany: http://www.twitch.tv/x5_pig/v/29893365)
Here's a game vs ForGG's 2-base marine-tank timing. Useful for showing the reliance on heavy zergling counts to keep us safe and defend off a low gas count. Also shows how strong those extra queens are for focusing down medivacs and tanking vs early pushes (twitch VoD for people in Germany: http://www.twitch.tv/x5_pig/v/29891564)
People don't seem to have adapted to the LOTV economy and are simply teching too fast, defending hellbat timings poorly and building too many mutas allowing them to be overwhelmed by Terran. So I've decided to post my current build showing an incredibly solid and well rounded opening where you defend absolutely any early pressure just with queens and a spine, and then control the midgame with mass ling-bane to get insane creep spread. We add mutas (or corrupters) to help control drops whilst teching to a fast hive and ultra-infestor. We use huge counter-attacks to buy time and take small trades rather than engaging right into a huge Terran pre-spread.
Safe Opening:
17 hatch, 18 gas, 17 pool
6 lings
32 3rd base+3rd queen (sneak drone around reaper if you have to, otherwise bully it away with lings)
33 overlord
From there:
Pull off gas @100
Back on gas 3:00 (if you struggle with such a tight build, you can delay this to 3:30 and delay evos until closer to 5:00)
45/4:00 3xqueens
4:00 spine (only if you struggle vs hellbats, not needed for high level players since the queen range) + go to 6-7 queens if you haven’t already.
4:15 2xevo
Only put down 2-3 tumors at first, save the rest of your energy for transfuse when dealing with hellbat or other 5:00 pushes (first queen at natural should drop her 2nd lot of energy as creep to make sure you get it started asap)
Fast 4th base whenever you have the minerals
@oversaturation go to 6 gases THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE BUILD. It means once your 3 mineral lines are OVERSATURATED only then do you take all 5 extra gases at once
@Lair spire and bane speed
4th injecting queen on 4th base AND when macro finishes dump excess creep queen energy into them. Preferably que up 4-5 injects on each hatchery for endless midgame larva.
2xmacro hatcheries whenever you have the cash
No more than 15 muta, if they already have more than 2 liberators just go straight to corruptors.
@75%spire drop infestation pit -->Hive --> 3 vipers, ultras and corrupters. Obviously the vipers/corrupters are only needed vs liberators ... so you'll need them every single game!
Only go Hive once you have your 4th base saturated - otherwise you can't afford 3-3, ultras and vipers etc
Sick creep spread
If you want, you can add in lurkers spread over the map and to defend/control space while your counters rekt his bases
Scouting
3:30 - Is there a starport or is there a 3rd CC?
4:30 Spores vs starport - (try to delay your spores when possible)
5:00 - Mech or bio?
Gas spending order
ling speed
evos
lair
Bane nest
2-2
Bane speed
Spire
Note: Swap evos and lair if any chance of aggression (Current meta this is most games so it's usually the best) Often you just get everything around the same time anyway but mo
Learning the Build When you first learn the build just delay your tech and gas spending for ages and put ALL your focus on getting the hatcheries and drones out on time. Only add tech and upgrades ONCE you've saturated all 3-bases AND taken all your gases, + have a 4th base and macro hatch down. It's very late tech but your insane econ will allow you to thrive.
Once you learn how to do the build fluidly you will find that the best way to play the build is to go for nice fast double evo around 3:40 to get those upgrades started and head forwards in the gas spending order outlined above.
Regular Style:
Once we hit 66 drones we just mass lingbane nonstop. We only drone our 4th after we crush a pressure and have map dominance, allowing us to spread creep everywhere and buying us lots of time.
Never go past 14 mutalisks, if they’re building more than initial harassment liberators early then just go corruptors (you can use the piss squad to snipe bases very well if they’re very defensive - 10 corruptors to piss down a CC in ~8 seconds. They can usually repair and save it in time but sometimes you’ll get it, and either way you’ll waste a lot of their cash)
Go straight for Hive is the big focus.
A big drop-defence squad on our 3rd army hotkey if they’re drop-heavy
Once you get to 150supply+ and still don't have ultras you only want to take direct engagements if you have a good surround. Instead it's easier to set up a lot of counterattacks and buy time by countering with 80 lings into their natural/main as they get halfway across the map.
Once Ultras and a few infestors are out you can usually roll over the Terran.
Make sure you're leaving burrowed lings/pooping overlords to deny expansions
Add 5 broodlords and some queens to your composition to break entrenched defensive locations, and to outrange ghosts.
I hope this guide helps the lovers of muta-lingbane out there find a a way to play this style out and most importnatly give players an understanding of just how important your mineral economy is if you want to play ling-bane-muta vs bio.
Please post questions below so I can elaborate on areas you're not sure of
On December 18 2015 06:23 Maxie wrote: Do you switch unit composition if you scout mech?
Yep just standard go roach-hydra lots of vipers and steadily trade out your roach/hydra for ultra/queen whilst adding double air upgrades. Keep abducting units for free and parasitic bomb any air for an easy win.
Why do you go hatch pool gas instead of hatch gas pool? Also to add on to that, why 6 lings instead of 4? Up until now I've been able to survive on most maps with the standard opener and 4 lings.
Dear pig, been watching your stream a lot lately and have found your style quite interesting. I've been struggeling with exactly those types of pushes. So a huge thanks to you for posting this! Will check this out for sure!
My biggest concern are still the widow mines. I am not too good at control and even if I pay attenttion all game long, sooner or later the moment will come where I lose all my banelings to 2 mines and then the game is over. Same can happen to mutalisks. It is just so frustrating to play this style because your army is so fragile.
I just edited the OP to include twitch vod links for German folk unable to watch the YT vods without using a proxy.
On December 18 2015 08:50 Dr Bjorn wrote: Why do you go hatch pool gas instead of hatch gas pool? Also to add on to that, why 6 lings instead of 4? Up until now I've been able to survive on most maps with the standard opener and 4 lings.
I prefer the faster pool for faster queens, lings and if vs proxy reaper, roach warren. 6 lings to make sure you can chase the reaper off and get a 3rd down asap. Any delay on that is very punishing. Also top players have very good reaper control so if you make a small mistake building only 4 lings can punish you a lot.
On December 18 2015 13:04 oOOoOphidian wrote: If your opponent opens 2 rax reaper or similar, do you defend with lings and still do this style, or do you go for roaches?
I prefer to skip inject/creep for the most part, get a roach warren, add more queens, get 5-8 roaches out and try to hold the cliffs/highground. If they keep building reapers I make a few of them into ravagers (superior range) and add some lings.
On December 19 2015 06:18 MapleLeafSirup wrote: My biggest concern are still the widow mines. I am not too good at control and even if I pay attenttion all game long, sooner or later the moment will come where I lose all my banelings to 2 mines and then the game is over. Same can happen to mutalisks. It is just so frustrating to play this style because your army is so fragile.
With good macro you can actually afford to take a few horrendous widow mine hits and the game won't be over. However I understand some people find it a bit too punishing on their micro/reactions. If you prefer to play roach ravager into infestor ultra that's completely viable too!
On December 19 2015 01:24 EJK wrote: pig i hate playing against your creep spread >_> it's like trying to clean up a leaky faucet, theres always more after you look away for a minute!
Haha thanks mate, creep makes zerg sooo much more powerful, and the mobility and swarming nature of this style really allows you to go crazy with it.
Thank you for this glorious guide Pig. I really wanted to go away from roach ravager in ZvT and ZvP, i used both your guides, trained them a bit in customs, against clanmembers and then on ladder. I really appreciate your work and stable macro-oriented playstyle. I got promoted to Master league NA yesterday.
Thanks, I've been kind of doing some of the stuff in here, but there's a lot that would have taken me forever to figure out. I've also been getting totally lost late game. It helped a lot seeing what maxed out army you were going for, and that fight at 19:30 was epic. It lasted like 30 seconds.
Muta play needs perfect timing. When you play infestor roach ravager you can still take great fights even if you made mistakes, but when you go Muta you need very good play all game long.
When you play muta you need to defend all enemy push perfect and then when you have muta you are not ahead, but maybe even.
Maybe Muta a bit stronger now after 1 month after release, because people do not expect Muta, but when terran know again how to properly scout muta play then they hit timing pushes again to keep you on 3 base.
I tried many builds and many mutas. You can still do it, but not so strong. You need to perfect scout, if not then timing pushes will kill you. If base turtle terran then you have hard time with Mutas against liberator and widow mine.
But against Protoss it is different now. Mutas strong. Soon meta will shift in ZvP to Ling Baneling Muta into curruptor broodloard. Early baneling speed is key to fight adept, because adept very strong.
I think mutas should be saved for Protoss. Infestor really good versus terran. Game still evolving.
On December 19 2015 18:23 A_needle_jog wrote: Muta play needs perfect timing. When you play infestor roach ravager you can still take great fights even if you made mistakes, but when you go Muta you need very good play all game long.
When you play muta you need to defend all enemy push perfect and then when you have muta you are not ahead, but maybe even.
Maybe Muta a bit stronger now after 1 month after release, because people do not expect Muta, but when terran know again how to properly scout muta play then they hit timing pushes again to keep you on 3 base.
I tried many builds and many mutas. You can still do it, but not so strong. You need to perfect scout, if not then timing pushes will kill you. If base turtle terran then you have hard time with Mutas against liberator and widow mine.
But against Protoss it is different now. Mutas strong. Soon meta will shift in ZvP to Ling Baneling Muta into curruptor broodloard. Early baneling speed is key to fight adept, because adept very strong.
I think mutas should be saved for Protoss. Infestor really good versus terran. Game still evolving.
It might prove that ling-bane styles aren't great with time, however I've seen 0 evidence that it's any worse than in HoTS ZvT. In experience if you focus your build on ling-bane with this build (HUGE focus on minerals, later tech) and think of the mutas as just a small defensive force, you can have some great success. The real focus of this guide is how to open up and defend with just queen-ling and a spine crawler, to get a sick mineral economy, great creep-spread and a fast 4th base. From there we can adapt in many directions as the meta evolves.
nice guide, been playing pretty similar but focussing on having a super fast macro hatch before lair usually feel like it helps more than the super quick 4th because you wont be able to drone it straight away in normal games unless youre winning big time already anyway - little benefit
On December 21 2015 11:36 A_Scarecrow wrote: ive been trying this build and ive struggled with bio tank pushes. any advice it hits before mutas are out.
Lingbane should rekt it if we've macro'd well enough. However there are a few problem maps/spawns where you might want to counter super hard as they reach the edge of your creep - Ulrena, vertical Seras cliff push etc all have really hard to engage areas especially without mutas/corruptors out yet.
Generally just make sure you focus on lings (banes not as important vs tanks) and try to pre-spread and flank. Also having good creep spread will be very beneficial.
If it's a fast 2-base heavy committment and you didn't realise and are up at 70 drones, you need to try and work on scouting I think.
On December 21 2015 13:58 Liquid`Ret wrote: nice guide, been playing pretty similar but focussing on having a super fast macro hatch before lair usually feel like it helps more than the super quick 4th because you wont be able to drone it straight away in normal games unless youre winning big time already anyway - little benefit
Thanks mate. Yeah I make sure to start injecting that 4th base just as if it's a macro hatch super fast, and the macro hatch is usually not far behind it! My way definitely is a bit riskier as the hatch is exposed but I like to have that option so in games where I've really destroyed a hellbat timing/drop/surrounded the early helions I can go straight to 10 drones on the 4th base and go super-powerful mode.
On December 21 2015 11:36 A_Scarecrow wrote: ive been trying this build and ive struggled with bio tank pushes. any advice it hits before mutas are out.
Lingbane should rekt it if we've macro'd well enough. However there are a few problem maps/spawns where you might want to counter super hard as they reach the edge of your creep - Ulrena, vertical Seras cliff push etc all have really hard to engage areas especially without mutas/corruptors out yet.
Generally just make sure you focus on lings (banes not as important vs tanks) and try to pre-spread and flank. Also having good creep spread will be very beneficial.
If it's a fast 2-base heavy committment and you didn't realise and are up at 70 drones, you need to try and work on scouting I think. .
yeah scouting is okish i do okay in that department but the spawns like your said have been really killer especially on ulrena i go roach ravager on that map and still have 50/50 chance on winning. ill work in it! i really want to get to gm but sometimes i feel so far from it cause of zvt being below 50%.
On December 21 2015 11:36 A_Scarecrow wrote: ive been trying this build and ive struggled with bio tank pushes. any advice it hits before mutas are out.
Lingbane should rekt it if we've macro'd well enough. However there are a few problem maps/spawns where you might want to counter super hard as they reach the edge of your creep - Ulrena, vertical Seras cliff push etc all have really hard to engage areas especially without mutas/corruptors out yet.
Generally just make sure you focus on lings (banes not as important vs tanks) and try to pre-spread and flank. Also having good creep spread will be very beneficial.
If it's a fast 2-base heavy committment and you didn't realise and are up at 70 drones, you need to try and work on scouting I think. .
yeah scouting is okish i do okay in that department but the spawns like your said have been really killer especially on ulrena i go roach ravager on that map and still have 50/50 chance on winning. ill work in it! i really want to get to gm but sometimes i feel so far from it cause of zvt being below 50%.
Yeah if you play roach ravager in those spots play it 55 drone-style where you go 6-gas but only half saturate your 3rd mineral line, look to deny terran 3rd and reduce tank count whenever possible. Super all-in/timing-based but amazing for crushing an aggressive player and pretty good at busting a defensive one!
When should I stop droning (temporarily) to make units when playing vs 2-base and vs 3-base Terran (I'm assuming I still want to reach 80-88 Drones on 4 bases)? I remember in the last PiG 1-gas guide in HoTS Terrans would hit at like 8:30 off 2 bases and 10:30-11:00 on 3.
Also when are the normal times that I should expect to see Natural and 3rd being placed?
Thanks for the great write up I really rely on guides like these.
On January 11 2016 17:44 Hungry101 wrote: When should I stop droning (temporarily) to make units when playing vs 2-base and vs 3-base Terran (I'm assuming I still want to reach 80-88 Drones on 4 bases)? I remember in the last PiG 1-gas guide in HoTS Terrans would hit at like 8:30 off 2 bases and 10:30-11:00 on 3.
Also when are the normal times that I should expect to see Natural and 3rd being placed?
Thanks for the great write up I really rely on guides like these.
It really depends on the attack. Normally I just base my response around where to stop my own economy. So vs fast 2-base attacks an absolute max of 60 drones, 4-gas is normally where I'm start pumping units.
I'm still pretty rough on game timer for most of these but here's some general ones:
Hellbat timing: 4:40. 2-base 3-rax 2xmedivac + stim attack (no early factory for helions) = ~5:30 double drop 2-base 3-rax 2xmedivac + stim attack (with helions = ~6:15 double drop ^fast 2-base marine-tank timings have similar timings. vs 3-base you can sometimes drone ~8 drones on your 4th before the fighting starts but generally mass units off 3-base so you can crush any pressure and have uninterrupted creep spread, then once you slap down a pressure (or have a good ball of units and feel safe) add drones on that 4th base.
You said in one of the comments that's completely viable to go with Roach/Ravager into Ultra/Infestor if this is the preference of the player. If i choose to go with this style:
1) You still make a spire? 2) Which upgrades i choose? Melee or Ranged alongside with carapace?
On January 16 2016 09:15 Alstreim wrote: Hello PiG, first thanks for the guide.
You said in one of the comments that's completely viable to go with Roach/Ravager into Ultra/Infestor if this is the preference of the player. If i choose to go with this style:
1) You still make a spire? 2) Which upgrades i choose? Melee or Ranged alongside with carapace?
Thanks
I wouldn't follow this guide at all for that style, but it is completely viable and I alternate between roach-ravager and ling-bane muta all the time. No spire until broodlord time for me, though many koreans like going corruptors. Ranged upgrades until +2 or +3 ranged based on preference. I usually cut +3 ranged and go straight for melee but it depends how the games going. If we're still going to be stuck on roach-ravager as the core of our army for a while we'll just stay on ranged until +3 is done then start melee. Ultras are great as long as they have the carapace upgrades to tank.
On January 17 2016 01:35 straycat wrote: How about upgrades? I don't think you mentioned them in the BO? Edit: Ah I see now your gas spending order, I understand.
Btw, do you count on mass queens holding early hellbats instead of banes?
Yeah don't stress on upgrades/tech. It's all about getting up 4-base, 5-hatch and saturating your 3-bases ASAP before pumping units. If there's lots of pressure evos/lair/bane nest are all hugely delayed. The great thing about this build is it crushes hellbat timings if you do the build right and save transfuse energy after 2-3 tumors. You don't even need to see them coming and that's part of what makes this so solid.
Thanks for the guide, I'll be trying this style out! Been struggling hard vs T lately. Also, the lack of transfuse on your ultra wounded my soul, 2-3 ultras in the deep red and full energy on queens just chilling :x
On January 20 2016 06:18 Amazonic wrote: Thanks for the guide, I'll be trying this style out! Been struggling hard vs T lately. Also, the lack of transfuse on your ultra wounded my soul, 2-3 ultras in the deep red and full energy on queens just chilling :x
Haha we all make stupid mistakes sometimes .
Yeah this style is super sick. Still using the exact same build and regularly beating top 100/top 50 KR GMs with it.
Thanks for the guide PiG! I may catch up on it, when I see my own build not really working anymore. I can just imagine that I would have some problems against liberator harass with just queens/spores. I find it easy just to blind counter it with 3-4 ravagers just in time. I play roach ravager with 1-1 and going then 1-2 melee for ultras and broods, while occasionally making infestors. it's quite a passive style, so I may try a more action packed way, like you do.
you kinda made me want to write my own guide too. But I'm just dia, so not really a great educational cause. :D
Dealing with liberators with this style isn't too hard unless it's the upgraded range version, where the best response is probably to rush spire.
edit: I'm still having some issues defending hellbat pushes with queens + spine, a lot of the time I end up having 4-5 queens at the front when they attack and not enough energy to transfuse a lot. They also tend to kill the queens first rather than the spine. In terms of playing a tiny bit safer, should I put down two spines instead of one or make some other adjustment until I feel like I can hold it reliably?
Yeah I found hellbat pushes to be pretty much undefendable with this build, queens and spine is just not enough, zerglings are useless so I guess a few banes is way to go, unfortunately you can not achieve that with this build since it's brutally gasless for that
On February 04 2016 23:08 Juny1spion wrote: Yeah I found hellbat pushes to be pretty much undefendable with this build, queens and spine is just not enough, zerglings are useless so I guess a few banes is way to go, unfortunately you can not achieve that with this build since it's brutally gasless for that
I hold hellbat pushes on a daily basis with this build. Make sure you stop at 2 creep tumors to save energy for transfuse! Pull down all your queens from the other bases if its heavily committed and flank with lings to come in from behind/engage when he spreads out! As you micro your queens back in a concave the hellbats are forced to spread out or waste their time chasing a single queen. If they spread out your lings can engage efficently
Hey Pig, I've been using this build and I'm ahving trouble with two things in general
One thing is, when I play ZvT and try this build, it's good for defending hellbat pushes up to 5:00 with the queens, but I feel like there's a weak phase between 5:00 and 6:30 where you are droning/teching up and very vurnable to marines, because queens do not engage vs marines effectively (at least I think so). So I have huge problems when enemy pushes me with MM around this time.
The other thing is (with zerg in general), I feel really uncomfortable with scouting before olspeed+overseer. OL scouts get denied so easily, zerglings that run up the ramp don't spot everything since they usually hide their army behind. Since this build is pretty defensive it feels very important to scout but I'm not sure what to do if the scout doesn't work out.
PiGStarcraft will give you a better response than mine, but i can tell you how i do for that (not that i'm only top diamond) :
I always drone scout (with my 13th ou 14th, depends of the map). So i don't need to keep my 2nd overlord on my natural. I send my first two overlord around the terran base and i double suicide overlords at 3:30. The terran can't deny both and most of the time you can save one overlord and you seen all you have to see.
On January 25 2016 01:09 Maxie wrote: Dealing with liberators with this style isn't too hard unless it's the upgraded range version, where the best response is probably to rush spire.
edit: I'm still having some issues defending hellbat pushes with queens + spine, a lot of the time I end up having 4-5 queens at the front when they attack and not enough energy to transfuse a lot. They also tend to kill the queens first rather than the spine. In terms of playing a tiny bit safer, should I put down two spines instead of one or make some other adjustment until I feel like I can hold it reliably?
As in the above post make sure you spread your queens back individually (not using the whole hotkey) and save energy after 2 or at most 3 creep tumors so you have transfuses kicking in just in time!
On February 13 2016 21:31 Xcrypt1991 wrote: Hey Pig, I've been using this build and I'm ahving trouble with two things in general
One thing is, when I play ZvT and try this build, it's good for defending hellbat pushes up to 5:00 with the queens, but I feel like there's a weak phase between 5:00 and 6:30 where you are droning/teching up and very vurnable to marines, because queens do not engage vs marines effectively (at least I think so). So I have huge problems when enemy pushes me with MM around this time.
The other thing is (with zerg in general), I feel really uncomfortable with scouting before olspeed+overseer. OL scouts get denied so easily, zerglings that run up the ramp don't spot everything since they usually hide their army behind. Since this build is pretty defensive it feels very important to scout but I'm not sure what to do if the scout doesn't work out.
Re: Marines - if they went helions earlier they shouldn't be able to have too many marines at this point in the game. Queens + spine does pretty decently when paired with popping out lots of lings. If it's a 2-base all-in and you've droned right up to 66-drones with no idea until it hits - this is nothing to do with the build - just us not reacting/scouting/playing it safe.
If you can't scout because they deny it ensure you are poking with lings you can at least see if the factory is on the reactor which is important - if not they could be going tanks or something else, and they are definitely continuing marine production with the front rax which is a sign of aggression. Otherwise that barracks is building addons in a regular macro build.
If you're completely blind and wish to be super safe a good adjustment would be to change your build by going:
Lair first 100 gas after ling speed 5:00 bane nest + evo chamber --> +1 carapace Only add 2-gases @3-base saturation Pump lings.
This way you stop droning quite a bit earlier, get fast lair for detection and bane speed. You only invest in 1 upgrade at a time at first (and its the most important upgrade vs tank pushes). You should be able to stop anything with this and still have a decent economy behind it.
Alternately you could squeeze in a fast ovie speed but there'd need to be some complex build adjustments to make sure you're still safe vs hellbats etc so I can't give more info on that.
Hi PiG, I have a question regarding overlord speed and gas timings.
I’ve noticed some Korean pros did research ovie speed a lot in ZvT during last GSL, so I thought that if it’s good for them, it’s even better for me as a poor diamond player trying to climb the ladder and be as safe as possible vs weird tech timings from Terran. So far, so good, but I feel it does not scales that well with your BO (which I love and use) as it messes up with early min econ. Righ now, I’m not putting away drones from gas and just follow up ling speed by ovie speed, is that the way to go or should I delay my further tech by putting off gas for a longer period of time? Or should I just drop it? Thanks!
Hey PiG, first off thanks for all the incredible knowledge you give to the community.
Second off, what do you think is the appropriate response to the Maru 5:00 minute double drop? I don't want to cry out OP because I know it's a 2 base attack that the Terran has to cut economy for but it feels like it always does fantastic damage, even when I know it's coming.
This is because the architecture of most maps lend themselves well to this, the Terran player will avoid a Spore Crawler or two that you placed for sfety (making me question the usefulness of even wasting the drones to build them) and they will drop the Marines right behind the mineral line. Should you just open with more Queens and lots of lings of of a 2 base economy and skip droning the third entirely? Then I feel like I'm behind the Terran (who also is on a 2 base economy but he has MULES).
Just curious as to what your thoughts were on this.
Hey pig After a long time it looks like somewhat meta again, how much can i drone to defend the double medivec stimm drop(5:00), it feels like 2 base 1 gas for counter attack and 2, 5 base for just defending, but both drone counts feels a little bit thin on the defense, thoughts? (I normally take ov speed so i cant really afford early bane nest)
On August 12 2016 23:26 DERASTAT wrote: Hey pig After a long time it looks like somewhat meta again, how much can i drone to defend the double medivec stimm drop(5:00), it feels like 2 base 1 gas for counter attack and 2, 5 base for just defending, but both drone counts feels a little bit thin on the defense, thoughts? (I normally take ov speed so i cant really afford early bane nest)
I just go drone about 2 bases and prepare 8 lings + 4 banelings for drops, 6 queens for defense, take a second gas, build a lot of lings to either attack or defend with.
On May 23 2016 21:28 DjayEl wrote: Hi PiG, I have a question regarding overlord speed and gas timings.
I’ve noticed some Korean pros did research ovie speed a lot in ZvT during last GSL, so I thought that if it’s good for them, it’s even better for me as a poor diamond player trying to climb the ladder and be as safe as possible vs weird tech timings from Terran. So far, so good, but I feel it does not scales that well with your BO (which I love and use) as it messes up with early min econ. Righ now, I’m not putting away drones from gas and just follow up ling speed by ovie speed, is that the way to go or should I delay my further tech by putting off gas for a longer period of time? Or should I just drop it? Thanks!
Sorry for missing this question for so long! You lose a lot of money for ovie speed - so if you do this style you need to really know how to use that information. Often I think it's better for most players to not go for ovie speed, but it really is a matter of personal preference.
Hey PiG, first off thanks for all the incredible knowledge you give to the community.
Second off, what do you think is the appropriate response to the Maru 5:00 minute double drop? I don't want to cry out OP because I know it's a 2 base attack that the Terran has to cut economy for but it feels like it always does fantastic damage, even when I know it's coming.
This is because the architecture of most maps lend themselves well to this, the Terran player will avoid a Spore Crawler or two that you placed for sfety (making me question the usefulness of even wasting the drones to build them) and they will drop the Marines right behind the mineral line. Should you just open with more Queens and lots of lings of of a 2 base economy and skip droning the third entirely? Then I feel like I'm behind the Terran (who also is on a 2 base economy but he has MULES).
Just curious as to what your thoughts were on this.
Likewise sorry for the slow response but good awareness of where they come from and having your queens ready is best. With the new queen range many players are playing a style somewhat simillar to this build and skipping banes, defending with just 6 queens and a lot of speedlings. Just don't chase off creep with only lings. Always fight together and focus medivacs whenever possible.
On August 12 2016 23:26 DERASTAT wrote: Hey pig After a long time it looks like somewhat meta again, how much can i drone to defend the double medivec stimm drop(5:00), it feels like 2 base 1 gas for counter attack and 2, 5 base for just defending, but both drone counts feels a little bit thin on the defense, thoughts? (I normally take ov speed so i cant really afford early bane nest)
That ovie speed slows down your build a bit - make sure you're doing everything efficiently. Usually though aim to have 6 queens and a good 30 speedlings (more in production) ready at 5:20. You might need to stop at just a few drones on the 3rd, and only drone after you build ~40 lings for safety.
Hey PiG, as you fait there is similar strats now like Dark's one, but most of them skip Mutalisks for a faster hive. Do you think Mutalisks are still relevant currently?
On August 16 2016 06:28 DjayEl wrote: Hey PiG, as you fait there is similar strats now like Dark's one, but most of them skip Mutalisks for a faster hive. Do you think Mutalisks are still relevant currently?
Yeah mutas can still be great. If you prefer just go Corrupters though. OR some players just add ravagers, infestors and go for hive in the midgame (True vs Polt on apotheosis - g1 dreamhack montreal finals) so there's lots of options available. No matter what you pretty much never mass mutas, usually stopping at about 15 to shut down medivacs and snipe widow mines after the initial harass.
Edit 20th September 2016: A few small tweaks to the order, but the fundamentals are the same. Sick build, super powerful and something pros have steadily gravitated towards more and more. The efficiency of this style has allowed it to stand the test of time. You also can go mass muta with this as long as you keep trading/finding damage and reducing the liberator count. They only get hard-countered once there's 6+ liberators all together.
Your BO says putting back workers on gas at 3:00, is this correct? it seems to be very early, how early are you getting your evo chambers ? Should +1 +1 be ready for the 5:30 attack? I don't think I can do that without really hurting my economy.
On October 20 2016 15:27 IcemanAsi wrote: Your BO says putting back workers on gas at 3:00, is this correct? it seems to be very early, how early are you getting your evo chambers ? Should +1 +1 be ready for the 5:30 attack? I don't think I can do that without really hurting my economy.
If you're a bit late it's not a big deal, but if you put back on at 3:00 you get double evos around 4:00 or just after then. It's not to be ready for 5:30, it's just to get well timed 1-1 and 2-2 for the midgame ling-bane battles.
If you struggle with this at your level you can always just put back on gas at 3:30 and take evos at 4:45-5:00
Thanks for the clarification, much much better now. I was getting bad trades at the mid game without the timely 2.2, much better now, not to mention spending is much crisper.
Out of curiousty, how do you deviate this build if you scout a very early barracks-reactor swap to factory-reactor?
On October 20 2016 23:12 IcemanAsi wrote: Thanks for the clarification, much much better now. I was getting bad trades at the mid game without the timely 2.2, much better now, not to mention spending is much crisper.
Out of curiousty, how do you deviate this build if you scout a very early barracks-reactor swap to factory-reactor?
sickkk.
Just make sure you have a few lings to stop runbys, make sure you go up to 8 queens (don't need a spine since 8 range) to be safe vs hellbats. Save energy for transfuse as always after 2-3 tumors. Continue with build as normal.
Okay, things are improving and my general ZvT win rate is indeed climbing. But there is one terran build that kills me every time I do this. When Terran goes for Bio-Mine with a LOT of mines in the midgame. Even if I hold the first drop perfectly and drone up to four base sat. they keep the pressure up on my 4th/3rd depending on the map. Eventaully I'll make a micro mistakes and my ling/bane army just disappears, he then moves forward and waits for the next mistake, until they kill a base then it's gg.
More lings, whenever I face mines I feel like Terran is making banelings for me. Utilise ling/ muta counterattacks to hurt their mineral income and divert attention from their micro at the front where banelings will become better. I play a very ling heavy style and just amoving my shit and then boxing 95% back seems to do the trick (letting enough ling bane through that mines trigger and gets pulled into the bio). This is where 6 years of worker boxspam has paid off for me. Obviously get speed overseers.
Really a more agressive unit heavy ling muta style works versus this as mines lose potency when they can't freely walk across the map and burrow somewhere where you're forced to engage.
On October 26 2016 21:46 Saechiis wrote: More lings, whenever I face mines I feel like Terran is making banelings for me. Utilise ling/ muta counterattacks to hurt their mineral income and divert attention from their micro at the front where banelings will become better. I play a very ling heavy style and just amoving my shit and then boxing 95% back seems to do the trick (letting enough ling bane through that mines trigger and gets pulled into the bio). This is where 6 years of worker boxspam has paid off for me. Obviously get speed overseers.
Really a more agressive unit heavy ling muta style works versus this as mines lose potency when they can't freely walk across the map and burrow somewhere where you're forced to engage.
Thanks, I'll try that, how many drones do you get against this? how many gases? Can you upload a replay of you holding this in a case where he sets up an offensive location near your bases at ~8:30 please?
My last TvZ, not a very clean game, but I win eventually because my opponent foregoes a 3rd CC due to being pressured and then gets his army banelinged when he's distracted by a handful of muta's.
I play by feel so I don't have preset drone counts or gas timings unfortunately. I tend to stay on 1 gas until I have mineral saturation on my bases.
On October 26 2016 20:33 IcemanAsi wrote: Okay, things are improving and my general ZvT win rate is indeed climbing. But there is one terran build that kills me every time I do this. When Terran goes for Bio-Mine with a LOT of mines in the midgame. Even if I hold the first drop perfectly and drone up to four base sat. they keep the pressure up on my 4th/3rd depending on the map. Eventaully I'll make a micro mistakes and my ling/bane army just disappears, he then moves forward and waits for the next mistake, until they kill a base then it's gg.
*I'll upload a few replays tonight
Heavier ling counts can be pretty awesome and work on boxing those front lings forward deeper into their army. I rarely ever do the pull back everything but the front guys micro, instead focusing on pulling the front guys forward.
Counter-attacks are pretty great.
For this style though usually your aim is to be able to overwhelm any sort of parade style push where they set up on you. Creep is very important (always focus it towards the front of your 4th right from the earlygame) as is just being able to overwhelm his army when he first comes. If the mines ever get time to recharge and then take place in another fight after already firing, things aren't going well for you.
At that point lots and lots of counterattacks and putting the pressure back on him is great as was suggested by Saechi!
On October 26 2016 20:33 IcemanAsi wrote: Okay, things are improving and my general ZvT win rate is indeed climbing. But there is one terran build that kills me every time I do this. When Terran goes for Bio-Mine with a LOT of mines in the midgame. Even if I hold the first drop perfectly and drone up to four base sat. they keep the pressure up on my 4th/3rd depending on the map. Eventaully I'll make a micro mistakes and my ling/bane army just disappears, he then moves forward and waits for the next mistake, until they kill a base then it's gg.
*I'll upload a few replays tonight
Heavier ling counts can be pretty awesome and work on boxing those front lings forward deeper into their army. I rarely ever do the pull back everything but the front guys micro, instead focusing on pulling the front guys forward.
Counter-attacks are pretty great.
For this style though usually your aim is to be able to overwhelm any sort of parade style push where they set up on you. Creep is very important (always focus it towards the front of your 4th right from the earlygame) as is just being able to overwhelm his army when he first comes. If the mines ever get time to recharge and then take place in another fight after already firing, things aren't going well for you.
At that point lots and lots of counterattacks and putting the pressure back on him is great as was suggested by Saechi!
To add a little bit more: Against widow mine heavy styles I suggest to not just f2->a-move -> micro. From my experience the best thing you can do is selecting 4-8 banelings with ~12 lings and just sending those units in. You want to move your Banelings either on top of his Widowmines to kill those or hit his bio with them while the goal of the lings is to run into the terran army and trigger Widowmines as well as "tanking" damage for the banelings.
In Short: Just attack with small amounts of units.
I take some unnecessary damage from the reaper as this was a game I was playing already tired, but nothing obscene, not nearly my best performance but I get into the mid game ok, then he pushes and I lose. gg game over, much fun.
LBM has a pretty high initial mechanical requirement. From what I saw in your replay your main problem is that you've not met that mechanical level to a degree where strategy is relevant.
In terms of hotkey usage, start using camera hotkeys for at least your first 4 base locations and then use that to jump from base to base and box inject. You seem to edge scroll a lot which wastes time when you're doing base management (set edge pan to max speed btw). Get into the habit of spamming F1 through F5 to check up on your bases, injects and drone saturation. If your injects slip shift queue dump that energy (at 9 minutes you have 2 full energy queens sitting by your natural) you should be starved on larvae when you're making lings, but that problem doesn't arise because you have too little drones and start lair, triple gas, double evo and double spores whilst not being saturated on minerals. You should have 16 drones on minerals at your main and nat and from then on start using fresh drones to start gasses and saturate them. Minerals are the main course, gas is seasoning. If you lose drones or miss overlords you have to accept the delay to your tech or you just end up with too little of everything like in this game.
Hotkey your lings as you build them, you don't seem to do this and it's really important to Zerg. Hotkeying units you're building is what makes it possible to keep your attention on other tasks that require attention, like reinforcing your army while focusing on micro. It's a feature exclusive to Zerg so abuse it!
You build quite a few Queens which is good versus Terran but you don't hotkey them so it becomes almost impossible to use them to defend. When you spot a drop on the minimap you should be able to hit your Queen hotkey and a-move to the position the drop is heading. 5 Queens together are going to save you a lot of money you'd otherwise have to spend on lings and those early spores. Their strength lies in focusing the medivacs as a pack and transfusing as needed, but your queens are kind of lost sprinkled about your bases and become mere inject/ tumor producers.
Last thing I noticed is that you have no vision besides your intitial two overlords. You have no idea when Terran moves out so you're building units based on timing to feel safe. Look at my replay's minimap at 4:30 - 5:30, rallying your 3rd and 4th overlords to safe spaces between your 3rd and their natural helps in having your lings and queens at the drop location in advance. Have a ling in in front of their base to see their main moveouts.
On October 29 2016 22:19 Saechiis wrote: LBM has a pretty high initial mechanical requirement. From what I saw in your replay your main problem is that you've not met that mechanical level to a degree where strategy is relevant.
In terms of hotkey usage, start using camera hotkeys for at least your first 4 base locations and then use that to jump from base to base and box inject. You seem to edge scroll a lot which wastes time when you're doing base management (set edge pan to max speed btw). Get into the habit of spamming F1 through F5 to check up on your bases, injects and drone saturation. If your injects slip shift queue dump that energy (at 9 minutes you have 2 full energy queens sitting by your natural) you should be starved on larvae when you're making lings, but that problem doesn't arise because you have too little drones and start lair, triple gas, double evo and double spores whilst not being saturated on minerals. You should have 16 drones on minerals at your main and nat and from then on start using fresh drones to start gasses and saturate them. Minerals are the main course, gas is seasoning. If you lose drones or miss overlords you have to accept the delay to your tech or you just end up with too little of everything like in this game.
Hotkey your lings as you build them, you don't seem to do this and it's really important to Zerg. Hotkeying units you're building is what makes it possible to keep your attention on other tasks that require attention, like reinforcing your army while focusing on micro. It's a feature exclusive to Zerg so abuse it!
You build quite a few Queens which is good versus Terran but you don't hotkey them so it becomes almost impossible to use them to defend. When you spot a drop on the minimap you should be able to hit your Queen hotkey and a-move to the position the drop is heading. 5 Queens together are going to save you a lot of money you'd otherwise have to spend on lings and those early spores. Their strength lies in focusing the medivacs as a pack and transfusing as needed, but your queens are kind of lost sprinkled about your bases and become mere inject/ tumor producers.
Last thing I noticed is that you have no vision besides your intitial two overlords. You have no idea when Terran moves out so you're building units based on timing to feel safe. Look at my replay's minimap at 4:30 - 5:30, rallying your 3rd and 4th overlords to safe spaces between your 3rd and their natural helps in having your lings and queens at the drop location in advance. Have a ling in in front of their base to see their main moveouts.
I really think you overstate the importance of mechanics. There are many Zergs that do just fine at gm / pro level without using a ton of camera hotkeys or even hotkeying their units. True and Guru just to give two examples.
What is more important is that you find a way to be comfortable with. You need to be able to quickly accomplish all macro related tasks. Whether you do that by clicking on the minimap, spamming home cam or using camera hotkeys is your thing, you simply have to able to do it.
On October 29 2016 22:19 Saechiis wrote: LBM has a pretty high initial mechanical requirement. From what I saw in your replay your main problem is that you've not met that mechanical level to a degree where strategy is relevant.
In terms of hotkey usage, start using camera hotkeys for at least your first 4 base locations and then use that to jump from base to base and box inject. You seem to edge scroll a lot which wastes time when you're doing base management (set edge pan to max speed btw). Get into the habit of spamming F1 through F5 to check up on your bases, injects and drone saturation. If your injects slip shift queue dump that energy (at 9 minutes you have 2 full energy queens sitting by your natural) you should be starved on larvae when you're making lings, but that problem doesn't arise because you have too little drones and start lair, triple gas, double evo and double spores whilst not being saturated on minerals. You should have 16 drones on minerals at your main and nat and from then on start using fresh drones to start gasses and saturate them. Minerals are the main course, gas is seasoning. If you lose drones or miss overlords you have to accept the delay to your tech or you just end up with too little of everything like in this game.
Hotkey your lings as you build them, you don't seem to do this and it's really important to Zerg. Hotkeying units you're building is what makes it possible to keep your attention on other tasks that require attention, like reinforcing your army while focusing on micro. It's a feature exclusive to Zerg so abuse it!
You build quite a few Queens which is good versus Terran but you don't hotkey them so it becomes almost impossible to use them to defend. When you spot a drop on the minimap you should be able to hit your Queen hotkey and a-move to the position the drop is heading. 5 Queens together are going to save you a lot of money you'd otherwise have to spend on lings and those early spores. Their strength lies in focusing the medivacs as a pack and transfusing as needed, but your queens are kind of lost sprinkled about your bases and become mere inject/ tumor producers.
Last thing I noticed is that you have no vision besides your intitial two overlords. You have no idea when Terran moves out so you're building units based on timing to feel safe. Look at my replay's minimap at 4:30 - 5:30, rallying your 3rd and 4th overlords to safe spaces between your 3rd and their natural helps in having your lings and queens at the drop location in advance. Have a ling in in front of their base to see their main moveouts.
While I agree I could obviously improve my general mechanics and that this was not my best game , it still had a 85+ spending quota, much higher then my opponent. And I knew when he was moving out this time so I fail to see relevance.
Now, macro better is always the right answer to anyone below GM but I don't think that was the worst thing this game for example.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe had I just had 40 more lings I can hold easy but I think the problem is now more on how I take fights
Also I do have camera hotkeys and set them up at start but yeah I need to use them more. Hot keys I agree with , I rely way too much on 'select all'
Spending quota is misleading. It only measures how well you are spending compared to your income. It doesn't account for whether you're spending your money on the right things or how good of a job you're doing at maximizing your income. It would give someone with 40 drones at 4:00 mins spread over 3 bases the same score as someone with 30 drones at 4:00 mins on 1 base as long as they spend their income evenly well comparatively. Macro skill is just as much about getting more economy as it is about spending it.
You can look at the spending quota and say yours was much better than the opponents (according to the replay upload site's algorythm) but when I look at the army spending when the Terran's game ending push hits your 3rd at 9:40, your opponent has spent 6925 on army and you have spent 6550. He has more army supply with an army consisting of liberators, siege tanks, mines, medivacs and 1/1 marines than you have with a pure hatch tech ling baneling queen army.
Frankly what should happen is that his push hits and you have more army supply, 2/2 upgrades and a flock of muta/ corrupter to take out his air and if you lose the fight then you can blame your loss on army engagements.
On October 30 2016 03:55 Saechiis wrote: Spending quota is misleading. It only measures how well you are spending compared to your income. It doesn't account for whether you're spending your money on the right things or how good of a job you're doing at maximizing your income. It would give someone with 40 drones at 4:00 mins spread over 3 bases the same score as someone with 30 drones at 4:00 mins on 1 base as long as they spend their income equally well in proportion. Macro skill is just as much about getting more economy as it is about spending it.
You can look at the spending quota and say yours was much better than the opponents (according to the replay upload site's algorythm) but when I look at the army spending when his game ending push hits your 3rd at 9:40, your opponent has spent 6925 on army and you have spent 6550. He has more army supply with an army consisting of liberators, siege tanks, mines, medivacs and 1/1 marines than you have with a pure hatch tech ling baneling force.
Frankly what should happen is that his push hits and you have significantly more army supply with 2/2 upgrades including a flock of muta/ corrupter to take out his air and if you lose the fight then you should focus on improving your engagements.
Okay, cool, so your saying I need to check if my 2/2 upgrades and spire units are up for this time? will do.
Here is another game, I think a better example. I see that I'm still missing 2/2 when the big fight happens and I think my biggest problem here was taking the 4th too late, but I don't know, I don't get this.
Looking back at all my LBM vs. RRC games it seems the biggest problems I have is that my macro with ling bane muta is much worse, probably due to the higher larvae count and hence inject mechanics required by this style, also thinking about LBM it is a very much one fight per tech kind of style, where you need constant momentum to stay in the game.
You want one fight on ling-queen one fight on ling bane, one fight on ling-bane-muta then hit ling-bane-ultra and stay there, this forces to constantly manage macro, micro and tech progression, where roach ravager is much more forgiving in that regards.
Okay, so I think my two best vector of attack on this are: - Improve injects and a faster 4th - constantly be teching and aiming for the next composition ( one fight per tech mindset )
Thing to note is that your opponent is playing super greedy throwing down such an early 3rd and if you don't play more greedy in return or try to punish you're going to be in a worse position than a standard ZvT. That said, your greed is limited by your injects this game. At 3:45 both your main and natural queen have 50 energy meaning you have missed 6 drones worth of larva which corresponds to the 350 minerals you have banked. You then throw down a spine and a spore since you saw a hellion and probably feel that you can afford it since there's no larva or gas.
The catch is that you don't need that spore and that spine and that you're basically flushing 275 minerals +missed drone mining away against an opponent that is investing heavily into economy. Instead of having 41 drones allowing you to start mining more gas and throwing down 2 evo chambers building additional queens and preparing for a lair and 4th, you now have 33 drones next to no gas 2 obsolete buildings and banked minerals.
Around 4 mins you make a round of lings you dont need to build because he has 3CC and he isn't moving out with his hellions as you can see with your Overlord. You make a Lair but you have only one drone mining gas, if you had the 12 drones that are missing at this point you could have 3 mining gasses and this would set you up for quick muta's. As it is the money on Lair is wasted as you don't have the gas income to support it. You haven't sent a queen to your finishing 3rd so you start missing inject time on that hatch as well.
While pointing out every error makes you seem like a worse player than you are I think it's important to put into perspective how much more shit you could have if you had a more efficient early game and that while your engagements have a lot of room for improvement it's better to start by having just way more units. If you use the thumb rule that you can only add gasses and buildings once you hit mineral saturation on your main and nat and that they can't go under that 16/16 saturation it will start becoming more obvious how drones are actually the thing that fuel your tech and ability to crush those pushes.
LBM is a unit based composition, you don't build spines or spores unless there's stuff like rushed cloack banshees or liberators. Static defense is most of the time a (wasted) money investment that could be avoided by having map vision, scouting and proper macro. If your opponent pokes with 4 hellions you have your extra queens hotkeyed to push them back and if they dive onto creep you have some lings you built when you saw the hellions move out hotkeyed to amove and surround them. You can start building static d when you have 4 bases going into Hive as you don't need to invest much more into economy at that point and you're spread out more and going into less mobile tech.
As for the runbys I saw you try in both games, you can't do that if you use your Select All unit hotkey as it will just send all the units back to where you amove for an engagement and result in a worse situation than when you would not counterattack.
EPT
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