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Edit2: Thread bumped to give some feedback, please note date of this post and consider if you want to answer to it. 
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=186817¤tpage=2#29
Edit: Doh, forgot the [L] tag.
So, at the moment bnet is doing its best to make me depressed, by continuing to make me play zvz consistently around or above 50%. (Last 40 games: zvz 20, zvp 13, zvt 7).
I am able to mostly beat toss and terran players ranked top gold and into plat, but my win percentage against zerg must be close to the 20% mark, and most of those few win games are the ones where I am matched against real newbies, like 40 games bronze players.
I have some replays, if anyone has any insights they would be most welcome. If there is any other info I should supply, let me know.
Game 1:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-183036.jpg)
Game 2:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-183037.jpg)
Game 3:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-183038.jpg)
Game 4:
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-183039.jpg)
I am sure much of my problem is that I haven't had any success with any build, so i don't practise one strategy the way I should. But now I am pretty much broken when it comes to zvz, it is really killing my enjoyment of laddering, and I feel that i am going into any zvz game with a shitty mindset.
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To be honest man everyone is still figuring it out. It is the hardest matchup by far. The best you can do is go watch some GSL games and steal some strats.
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The easiest strategy I've found that works in most ZvZ's is early pressure.
Example: Zergling + Baneling and crush them with good micro.
Example: Fast Roaches.
Usually - You can win the game with this depending on who you play or how you play.
I don't have time to watch the replays now, but I did what I could. If you know this stuff already, sorry that it didn't help. >_<
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Lol, that is the problem, at the moment I don't feel like I know anything at all, I don't have any plans, any tactics, or any hope for that matter. The problem is worsened by the fact that I get so many mirror matchups.
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Only watched first game but you lost because you had worse macro in that game. He should have been far behind because he tried to all in you on 1 base then after you defended several times he decided to expand. Also you shouldn't have attacked into him, you had economical advantage so you could have just tried to use up your minerals first THEN attack. Also place your overlords better, put them in the middle of the map and stuff because they'll most likely be untouched if its just roach vs roach, unless they got hydras or muta or osmething like that. Could have used the extra minerals to just make spinecrawlers so you can cut corners and get ahead in econ even more.
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EGMachine did a good review of his ZvZ with MrBitter..can't find the link right now but it's 3 builds, all pretty simple and work pretty well! Sorry I'll try to find the link.
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Title made me lol ... Bane of my existence banelings XD
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second to HadesCP watch the EGMachine ZvZ coacing session from Mr. Bitter's stream it is amazing
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If you really hate it that much, downvote shakuras, scrap and meta and you'll avoid a lot more zergs
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Okay im gonna resist trying to tell you what strat to use. But I will say this, if you are going to use a strat, learn how to do it the right way.
You are absurdly overdefensive the entire game (replay 1), you make a simcity/spines/put roaches in your mineral line when scouting your opponent could provide you all the info you need (especially once you had roaches out man, that spine was stuck in there cause of placement, you could have blocked your choke with a TINY amount of roaches). You made almost no early lings. You are incredibly slow with your upgrades and spells (your +1 ranged was sooo late, and you got +1 carapace before +2 ranged for some reason, in addition you had the money to upgrade and TWO evo chambers for a LONGGGGG time; you also got burrow movement BEFORE YOU TECH'D BURROW AND BEFORE YOU GOT YOUR SECOND ROACH UPGRADE EVEN WITH TWO EVO CHAMBERS O_O)
The key thing to watch in the matchup above was your opponents natural (i.e. when its going up). On one base his choices are relatively limited, but you had no vision of his natural most of the time. Thankfully he didn't choose to expo when he easily could of, and you even got off your expo before him. That should have translated into a roach timing push off 2 base to rofl him, but for some reason you overdroned at stayed on roach tech without bringing an attack until late in the game.
Also, watch this replay over and over, THERE IS SO MUCH INFORMATION HERE, your opponent made a ton of HUGE micro mistakes (I couldnt even watch after his horrible attack to take out your roach warren and pool). You clearly made mistakes of your own although your roach micro was better. I haven't watched the other replays yet, but I suggest watching your own replays again and again to glean the source of the problems you are facing.
Roach block --> 2 base roach push --> roach/hydra/infestor (if your roach push was met with roaches of his own that held it) isn't a horrible strategy, but learn how to do it the right way.
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Personally in ZvZ, I usually open with slings that have +1/1 then react to the opponent..
A lot of times you see a Bling reaction, which isn't so bad if you micro it out (We are in similar leagues, though it does take some practice it's not too bad)
Usually if you can keep them focused on building tier 1, you can have the time to tech past them and deny then expanding, which comes to a GG most the time
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Thanks a lot for the tips guys, will check out the mrbitter machine vod, and revisit my own replays before massing games again. This shit has to stop.
Edit:
Lmao, i feel like the biggest dork when reading eth3n post. But thanks so much for your time.
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day9 also has done some simple yet very well timed build for ZvZ in his newbie tuesday. go check out that series. it'll help u alot.
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If you're gonna check out the mrbitter machine vod you might as well watch zvz with Ret as well. Its a better way to fast expand than the way machine suggests imo and can be used in more situations.
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If you want fewer ZvZs stop downvoting the maps that Zergs classically hate. Just learn to play on all maps; it's not a big deal until you get to really high skill levels.
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i thought i had it bad when i got 7 ZvZsin a row lol. personally i liked ZvZ lots more when it was mostly Ling bane because now its all just one big roach spam. I have found that Zergs are getting super fucking greedy and like opening with an FE and then going into roaches while skipping lings and ling speed, so in response to this i have been doing the good old 14 gas 14 pool and putting on lots of speedling pressure. The advantage with getting speed for your ling is you can freely expand pick off drones, small roach groups and queens also this often forces spine crawlers. also try this BO (its alot of fun)
gas 10/10
drone 9/10
pool (put 2 drones on gas) 10/10
ovie 9/10
drone 10/10
6lings 10/18
baneling nest 13/18
pump lings until bling nest is done and make like 5-6 banes once the nest is finished
super fast banes catch alot of people by surprise
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I watched a couple games. In addition to the advice that has already been given, I can make a few suggestions.
You should think about using a consistent hotkey scheme. You sometimes hotkeyed your hatches, sometimes hotkeyed part of your army, etc. It's nice to dedicate keys to your hatches/queens, then have groups of units on other keys. There are a lot of ways people do it, so I won't go into detail, but all of them are faster than mouse selecting every time.
You should also always be asking yourself if you know (or have an idea of) what your opponent is doing, to make sure that you're taking a path to counter that. I get the impression that you're almost sitting around and waiting to die, because you haven't scouted his unit composition, you don't know if he's expanding or spamming units to kill you, etc. It seems to me that you can beat P and T because droning up and waiting to block attacks basically works in those matchups. Against Z especially (still holds true for the others, but not to the same extent) you need to constantly be gauging his army to figure out what damage you can do and what units you need to produce... if you just sit on some set of units and wait, your opponent will produce the counter and roll you over.
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On January 23 2011 11:39 Tynan wrote:
If you want fewer ZvZs stop downvoting the maps that Zergs classically hate. Just learn to play on all maps; it's not a big deal until you get to really high skill levels.
Dude, I don't think it matter tbh. Check the thread I link to in the first post. The opponent is picked before the map. I think the reason i get a lot of zerg is that a lot of zerg are struggling in silver while the terran players has moved on.
Also, I tried removing my Lost Temple veto, only thing that changed is that now i play a lot of zvz on lost temple as well lol.
But you are right though, I find that with my new love of aggressive creep spread i have been getting very good results against P and T on LT. I may actually get rid of my SOW veto.
On January 23 2011 11:45 SigmaSin wrote:
You should also always be asking yourself if you know (or have an idea of) what your opponent is doing, to make sure that you're taking a path to counter that. I get the impression that you're almost sitting around and waiting to die, because you haven't scouted his unit composition, you don't know if he's expanding or spamming units to kill you, etc. It seems to me that you can beat P and T because droning up and waiting to block attacks basically works in those matchups.
You are probably right. I have made a very intentional adjustment in my gameplay to play extremely reactionary mostly speedling muta with a ton of creepsread against P and T, and it has been very successfull. However I feel that I am going to have to diversify my tactics to really improve. Also as you say it is extremely difficult to translate my zvp and zvt into a meaningful zvz tactic.
And I do understand that my mindset is a huge part of the problem here. Oh well.
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You should work on ONE build for ZvZ and perfect it, exactly as Day9 says.
I highly recommend doing this:
14 pool
15 gas
Make roach warren immediately when pool finishes. Make roaches, don't waste larva on lings. Put the roaches on your ramp on hold position and block any speedlings or baneling runbys. This build is extremely safe.
Don't waste time trying do do a playstyle of speedlings and banelings, just go for roaches, it's too much for you to focus on during the game, just work on your macro.
- mid masters zerg.
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Lately I've been doing a blind all in in ZvZ, with very good success at the 2700 diamond level.
Basically I open 15 pool 14 gas. Get roach warren as soon as pool finishes. While you're waiting for warren to finish, get an extra overlord and an evo chamber. Soon as the warren finishes start pumping roaches and get +1 ranged attack when the evo finishes. Use the roaches to block off your ramp but keep some at your hatch to hide your numbers, you want to keep them guessing.
Move out to attack with +1 ranged is 80-90% complete, just try to time it to where it finishes right as your roaches reach his natural.
If they go super early banelings be prepared to micro your drones until a few roaches complete, it's pretty easy to hold off and leaves you ahead.
This is not something that will work forever, but I've been winning 90% of my zvzs with it and will continue using it until people get wise to it.
So far I have only lost to mass speedling where I moved out too soon and he ran speedlings into my base to kill all my drones and then ran back in time to save what was left of his base. I've also lost to fast expand builds on lost temple because they can get such strong spine crawler defense at the narrow natural. The nice thing is I am able to recognize these things so I will just not attack when it looks too risky and instead take an expo.
Most game people are completely caught off guard with my roach numbers + ranged upgrade and it is a very easy win.
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EPT
