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Unless you've been living under a rock for the past several months, if you play Zerg, you know, love, adore and want to make sweet love to Dimaga. Touted for his creativity, Dimaga is also one of the strongest all-around, mechanical Zerg players that there is today.
Recently I've been struggling with my ZvP. After many nights of despair, rage, and lousy ladder losses, I decided to turn to Dimaga for answers. Dimaga does lots of crazy stuff when he plays, but what I want to focus on right now is what I'm going to call his "standard" ZvP BO.
First, a couple replays:
vs. Huk on Scrap Station - http://sc2.replayers.com/replays/view/1817
vs. WhiteRa on Scrap Station - http://sc2.replayers.com/replays/view/1426
The fact that they're both on scrap station may be significant... Or it may not be. I'll throw up some of my own replays at the end to show the build on other maps. In the mean time, if anyone else has reps of this build on other maps, please cough 'em up.
The Build:
14 Gas
14/15 Pool
Expo around 21
Ling Speed + Drone to 26-30
Evolution Chamber
+1 Attack (unless you see a forge, in which case you get carapace)
After you have enough gas for speed and +1, pull all drones off gas
Around 30 supply, pump lot's and lot's and looots of lings. 50-60 Zerglings.
Once this is done, put drones back on gas, and get lair. At this point, you're pumping purely drones.
As soon as Lair is done, infestation pit >> hive.
This is around the time, or perhaps slightly after most Toss will be making their first pushes.
If you CAN'T defend with just your lings, and if you CAN'T deter an attack by threatening run-bys, add 3-6 spines at your front.
As soon as Hive is up, ultra den goes down, and army production can kick back in again.
What this build does:
The massive zergling numbers do a surprisingly good job of shutting down most Toss pushes. Your numbers are just so overwhelming, that even largely zealot-centric armies will fold to the lings. The +1 is also a big help here.
Against 4 gate, and 3 gate+robo builds, this BO truly shines. The first push will be utterly obliterated, and if Toss goes home to turtle up until colossus, the ultra timing works out so that you have war-rhinos ready when he comes back out.
Against Stargate builds, the Zerg player is going to have to pump extra queens. This is because our Lair is pretty significantly delayed. (Dimaga usually gets his AFTER 8 minutes) However, assuming we can sniff out the stargate tech, queens do an excellent job at handling both voids and phoenixes until other tech kicks in.
What this build does not do:
This build does not do well against 2 gate pressure. If you go look up more Dimaga replays, any time he sees 2 gate, he transitions immediately to roach. The reason this build suffers vs. 2 gate, is because the zealot numbers get pretty high before we can start pumping lings.
This build also doesn't handle forge cuteness all that well. Lings just die too quickly to cannons. Again, if you look at Dimaga replays, you'll see that he opts for roaches against forge first builds also.
Now, since I was only able to dig up Dimaga reps using this build on Scrap Station, I've prepared a few of my own replays on other maps.
I'm a 1k-1.2k Zerg player.
http://sc2.replayers.com/replays/view/3270 - vs 4 gate on Xel'Naga Caverns
http://sc2.replayers.com/replays/view/3274 - vs 4 gate on Scrap Station
http://sc2.replayers.com/replays/view/3275 - vs a Zealot heavy open that got shut down by run-bys on Steppes of War
http://sc2.replayers.com/replays/view/3276 - vs 3 gate robo (immortal push)
I'm going to wrap this up by saying I really am blown away by how awesome this build is. Lings are so cost effective, and so good at buying you time until ultras pop. I would definitely advise anyone at any skill level to give this build a shot.
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So the point of this is to fast tech to ultras but at the same time, delay tech and mass lings?
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On September 07 2010 16:31 bananengurke wrote:
So the point of this is to fast tech to ultras but at the same time, delay tech and mass lings?
No. The point is to safely tech to ultras.
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On September 07 2010 16:31 bananengurke wrote:
So the point of this is to fast tech to ultras but at the same time, delay tech and mass lings?
Unlike Protoss and Terran zerg can't wall behind one unit and tech to t3. Seems interesting I might fool around with it.
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Looks interesting... I've been getting flattened by 4 gate builds lately (I guess they figured out if they go economy first they can make the first push huge).
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what about fully charged void rays?
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How are you going to scout what they are getting (robo/gateway/twilight/stargate) Suiciding 1-3 overlords and hope you're lucky and that you see what he's getting on the first overlord?
I also don't see this working at all vs a 1 gate core into 3-4 gate zealot-sentry attack, as long as the protoss is being careful, so I guess one has to rush to roaches when the ovie spots a bunch of zealots and/or sentries?
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I get lots of lulz out of people saying "this build that Dimaga uses regularly will never work".
If they go air >> get queens until you can have hydras out. This happens in one of the Dimaga replays linked in the OP.
As for scouting: Use this build if they don't 2 gate, or go forge first. Simple as that. It works very well against the vast majority of typical mid-game toss plays.
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I do this a lot. The only thing that differs in my play is that I go
14 gas
14 pool
15 evo chamber.
The evo chamber finishes just as you have about 100 gas. Get +1 first and then speed. Speed finishes later but you have the +1 sooner. They finish at about the same time.
Its very good against 4 gates. When I get home I will edit this post with some replays of my version of this build.
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As for scouting: Use this build if they don't 2 gate, or go forge first. Simple as that. It works very well against the vast majority of typical mid-game toss plays.
what if they prevent further scouting with your overlords, scout that you have less anti-air and go double cb'd stargate? a few queens are not sufficient to stop that.
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I have been using this build since early beta, and I have never considered another alternative to be superior. I even used it in ZvZ back before the roach nerf and blings became the standard. Lings just handle EVERYTHING if you defend outside your choke and bait forcefields to get a decent surround. I know it doesn't mean much, but I never deviate from this build against single digit diamonds and the way I generally lose is either being outplayed (obviously), or just having bad positioning and not being able to fit enough of my forces through a small area. I can't recall a time I wasn't properly prepared for a push or felt my force was inadequate.
Edit: I just want to emphasize that lings can literally handle every unit the gateway makes except templar. If you are getting taken down by sentry/zealot you simply need to work on your FF baits and positioning. I don't actually know if +1 melee is superior to armor vs zealots, but it has been working so far  As for voidrays, just make another queen, same as every other build -_-
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This build can work vs T too?( ling+baneling into ultra)
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I've been doing a similar style of ZvP lately, and it works surprisingly well,
1/0 lings are cost effective vs all 0/0 gateway units until t3
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What happens if/when the P opts to go for some upgrades, especially armor ones? *More* lings? =)
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Can someone post a replay of beating an 4g zeal/sentry push with lings? I think that would be the hardest part to beat.
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On September 07 2010 18:21 nomatchh wrote:
This build can work vs T too?( ling+baneling into ultra)
You would go ling + infestor into ultra. Blings would be a bonus. With 8+ infestors, you can whittle down any army, with the focus on targeting hellions (as they just roast your lings). Tanks will end up hurting the terran army more than your own if you can position things correctly.
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In both of the reps linked DIMAGA goes for +1 armor, not +1 attack even though there were no forge to be seen.
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On September 07 2010 19:03 grobo wrote:
In both of the reps linked DIMAGA goes for +1 armor, not +1 attack even though there were no forge to be seen.
Vs. WhiteRa he goes + attack afair.
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On September 07 2010 19:03 grobo wrote:
In both of the reps linked DIMAGA goes for +1 armor, not +1 attack even though there were no forge to be seen.
I'm gonna dig up some more Dimaga reps where he gets +1 attack instead. I know I've seen this build on other maps, its just a pain to dig through so many replays looking for it.
That said, thanks for pointing that out. I might need to go back and change the OP to reflect it.
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EPT
