Digitalz here, 5 time M3 Zerg scrub thats struggling to make it big, back at it again with round 2 on the video overview / analysis shenanigans and today i want to shed some light on a video Lowko released last week titled "Zerg Cheese" but for reference sake lets call this the 15 hatch all in?
After some great feedback from the last video i have tried to make some adjustments and im trying to keep the videos as short as possible showcasing some tips / tricks and general followups when things dont go so well.
As always please check out Lowko's video here for the complete details on the build order itself as that is not what THIS video is about although its fairly straight forward to pickup on
So far i have played roughly 30 ZvZ on ranked ladder as of writing THIS post and I have only lost 1 game in a gm tournament (i swear the guy was a map hacker LOL) most games are OVER before the 4 minute mark and the BEST part of all is this build comes across to your opponent as a 17 hatch opener haha, and if you do get that initial overlord snipe they wont see it coming, but honestly sniping the overlord isn't even necessary
This video not only overviews the build but showcases how effective it is against players much greater than myself, against people who cheese and especially against those who open "standard" we discuss reasons why you might want to go for this type of build and last but not least we cover what happens if you cant close out the game with it? (honestly 95% chance you will win before 4 minutes)
Anyways here you guys go, support those dank click bait thumbnails too
As always the topic is open for discussion i would love to hear how your ZvZ experience is going, how you find the match up overall and whatever feedback you can throw my way
00:34 14/14 Hatch an Natural Expansion setzen 00:54 14/14 Spawning Pool 01:04 14/14 Overlord 01:12 14/14 Extractor
14-hatch opener to be safe against zerg cheese, to follow-up with macro or play aggressive depending on what the opponent is doing. The first time I used it I defeated a 12-pool in gold league range.
Not sure whether this 15-hatch opener deserves a "cheese" flag by itself, it seems to be a safe way of surviving early ZvZ as well
On May 27 2017 04:19 Syn Harvest wrote: Does a 17 Gas Pool or Pool Gas into Hatch beat this?? Couldn't you have banes in time??
Most zergs (even at the higher levels) will pull back their overlord after seeing creep at your natural, in fear of their ovie getting sniped by the queen about to pop out at the natural hatchery, and therefore fail to see all the lings you're making and hiding. The timing between a 15 hatch and 17 hatch is pretty difficult to notice, and most players opening pool first will try to catch up to your hatch-first build by droning.
here is a GM ZvZ where I explain that Interaction.
Your hold relied on you seeing the early Hatch and dropping a Bane nest before ling speed. In the current map pool there is no way to make such a read because the hatch will be done by the time your first overlord gets there and you will not be able to deduce that it is early. So you play standard and get ling speed before banes and you die.
here is a GM ZvZ where I explain that Interaction.
Your hold relied on you seeing the early Hatch and dropping a Bane nest before ling speed. In the current map pool there is no way to make such a read because the hatch will be done by the time your first overlord gets there and you will not be able to deduce that it is early. So you play standard and get ling speed before banes and you die.
I can't try this atm but I've been seeing more 14 or 15 Hatch all-ins lately and this seems quite good. After going 17/18/17, has anyone tried defending against the all-in by building an Evo and Bane Nest between the Hatchery and mineral line of the natural, holding two Queens in the gaps, and moving Drones and a couple Lings into that space until you have Banes? One or two Spines might be needed in the main/nat as well. Queens or the Drones always seem to get caught before the ramp gets blocked or a Spine finishes and then you're screwed, not too sure what's best outside of doing a rush or another different build.
On May 28 2017 00:59 GGzerG wrote: Everytime I have faced this, I won pretty easily with 14/14.
You should auto loose if u 14/14 as the player doing the 15 hatch cheese has way more larvae at their disposal assuming they can micro from banelings, in response to this, everytime ive faced a 13/12 or a 14/14 ive won with this up against M2 players even
here is a GM ZvZ where I explain that Interaction.
Your hold relied on you seeing the early Hatch and dropping a Bane nest before ling speed. In the current map pool there is no way to make such a read because the hatch will be done by the time your first overlord gets there and you will not be able to deduce that it is early. So you play standard and get ling speed before banes and you die.
you can send a drone scout?!
nobody drone scouts in zvz lol, this takes big advantage of that fact
On May 29 2017 01:43 blunderfulguy wrote: I can't try this atm but I've been seeing more 14 or 15 Hatch all-ins lately and this seems quite good. After going 17/18/17, has anyone tried defending against the all-in by building an Evo and Bane Nest between the Hatchery and mineral line of the natural, holding two Queens in the gaps, and moving Drones and a couple Lings into that space until you have Banes? One or two Spines might be needed in the main/nat as well. Queens or the Drones always seem to get caught before the ramp gets blocked or a Spine finishes and then you're screwed, not too sure what's best outside of doing a rush or another different build.
Any type of wall off play seems to get shut down hard by this build however spine crawlers appear to be really effective if they get like 2, sure you can place queens between structures to be way more effective and buy time but ultimately your speed finishes way faster vs the current standard 17 hatch first or even pool first builds and once you kill the enemies queens / natural you just out swarm them
To defend you send your scouting lings to his base and it's pretty obvious by the lack of drones in Nat, 1 queen, no gas mining, no third, a very large amount of lings (lol). So you pull your queens to the ramp, evacuate your nat, and just wait for your lings to pop/bane nest to finish. You can use some drones to micro and hold position in front of your queens on the ramp if you need to. Honestly this build is a pretty easy hold. Once you know it exists it's really straightforward scouting and just building units.
I thought cheese meant relying on catching your opponent off-guard by abusing Fog of War. Since when did cheese mean relying on your opponents to make mistakes such as not being able to tell the difference between 15 Hatch and 17 Hatch or failing to notice that you weren't producing a Queen at your natural and even managing to lose an Overlord for no reason.
Semantics aside, if I were you I would open 16 Hatch 15 Extractor 14 Pool instead of 15 Hatch 15 Extractor 14 Pool. Why? Because upon scouting 15 Hatch a decent opponent would realize that you sacrified a lot of econ relative to standard play (17H18E17P) and adjust accordingly. I suppose on large maps, one might argue 16 Hatch has the exact same weakness albeit to a less grave degree.
Beyond that, I would produce a Queen at your natural - otherwise your capabilities and thus also your aggressive intentions are clear as crystal.
All in all, what you're doing punishes your MMR less than my own solution to the boring matchup that is ZvZ. I just leave right away more often than not.
On May 29 2017 02:19 McMonroe22 wrote: To defend you send your scouting lings to his base and it's pretty obvious by the lack of drones in Nat, 1 queen, no gas mining, no third, a very large amount of lings (lol). So you pull your queens to the ramp, evacuate your nat, and just wait for your lings to pop/bane nest to finish. You can use some drones to micro and hold position in front of your queens on the ramp if you need to. Honestly this build is a pretty easy hold. Once you know it exists it's really straightforward scouting and just building units.
Keep in mind we are talking about Low Master / Diamond League Players here. In those leagues the responses are not that fleshed out and even if they know it's coming more often than not they will fail to defend things properly and end up dying.
On May 29 2017 04:28 HKTPZ wrote: All in all, what you're doing punishes your MMR less than my own solution to the boring matchup that is ZvZ. I just leave right away more often than not.
I would much rather play out the match further, try to make something of it, and learn a real solution instead of lazily concede the point as if there's nothing to learn or even nothing to discuss and move on to something easier.
Failing over and over may lead to a large loss of matchmaking rating at first and forfeiting a difficult matchup can give you the illusion that you are spending time more efficiently and gaining mmr in the short term. However, if you become a better player through learning solutions to problems you face in every matchup, by seeing games out to the finish, tackling the problems, you will gain long term knowledge and skill which will lead to you gaining more mmr in the long term as well. As long as you take the time to reflect, of course, which many players don't want to bother with.
I am no pro...but I can tell you that every single ZvZ I play I am on the lookout for early lings. Its not like an early ling rush is a surprising thing, even from actual 17 hatch first builds. An ovie sitting outside the attack path to spot lings is all it really takes, but you could also drone scout or send your initial lings across to spot things. Any pool or gas first build is just set up to counter things like this by default. Drop a spine or two, queens block the ramp, make a bane nest...there are usually lots of options.
That said it will usually come down to a micro battle, and if you as the attacker have better micro than the defender you can always find a way to win, but that works vice versa as well. Don't get me wrong, I have won/lost a lot of games based on ling all ins. I just think any player who has seen things like this before would know what to do to stop it.
I can't watch the video because I am at work but I will watch it later.
Its hitting the ladder bigtime now (mid dia). I lost to it 4 games in a row. Scouting it isnt too hard, but even if scouted, the sheer number of lings -for me- is hard to deal with if I got speed before banes.
Blocking the ramp with queens is worth a try, but then he should be able to get my nat. Not sure who's ahead when that happens: me on 1 base with 19 drones (with speed and banes), or he on 2 hatch with 14 drones (with speed). Still feels like I'm on a timer: once he catches up on drones and gets banes of his own, my window closes.
Still fun to try and beat it though, I'll keep trying.
EPT
