EPTSo I was browsing old webpages of Brood war when I stumbled across this Gem. I searched for it on tl already and found only one dead link to it. So I though I mine as well post it for those who are intrested in it. also this would be a good addition to liquidpedia for the ZvP section.
+ Show Spoiler +
Today it's the day where Mondragon publishes another masterpiece. This time it's not a replaypack of him, it's an entire Zerg vs Protoss Guide. After reading and going through it intensely everyone of you should be able to strengthen to power of the Swarm against our beloved Protoss fellows. Take your time and enjoy it.
Zerg vs Protoss Guide
Introduction:
The Zerg vs Protoss matchup is very much based on a certain feeling. The zerg player always has to anticipate what the protoss player is going to do. That means that zerg is only the reactionary part of the matchup. The protoss player must play offensive and the zerg just adapts his play to it. Being offensive as zerg like dropping very much CAN be good, but mostly it gets beaten easily by the protoss with a few cannons and 1 templar in his main / expansion. Thus you better play defensively, reactionarly and keep the game under your control. You need to have the feeling to have the maximum amount of drones though you still need to be able to beat the toss' attack. If you get that certain feeling you will be able to beat the protosses more than they beat you in the long run.
Most imporant thing:
As zerg you must have the control over the game, but how do you do that? It starts very early to lay the milestone for the game's control. Most of the protoss' players are going for a quite fast +1 attack upgrade and the way to save the map control is to have your +1 carapace upgrade earlier than the protoss his attack upgrade. Your zergling are much more worthier with the same amount of carapace and it makes the whole game a lot easier for you. Otherwise your zerglings are kind of useless with less carapace. So make sure to have your evolution chamber in time to keep the upgrades balanced! In my opinion it is enough to have 2 evolution chambers and to upgrade melee attack and carapace only, after finishing 3 upgrades, you can upgrade hydra attack as well.
How to start the game?
There are different openings for a zerg. Many zergs play 12 pool followed by an 11 expansion. On maps with not that long ways between the starting position you need to have a real good micro against an early zealot + probe rush if your sunken isn't finished yet. On some maps it can be a really bad strategy in my opinion.
Some zergs just play 12 hatch 11 pool expansion and hope not being rushed hardcorely. I don't think that this is very reasonable since it depends very much on luck. You should only play like this on maps with very long ways and where you can not get cannon rushed. (i.e. cannons behind minerals blocked by a pylon) If you play it on a normal map, you are dependant on a micro mistake of the protoss or you just need to get many drones to defend the rush.
The way I play is a 9 hatch expansion, followed by 9 overlord and 9 pool. Then you can build drones until 11 and spawn 8 zerglings right away while building 2 sunkens at the expansion if the protoss is rushing. Otherwise you just build 1 sunken to be safe or even no sunken if you see him playing fast expansion.
Playing 9 pool with speedlings is more than useless against a good protoss. He could even beat your rush with one gate built with 9th probe. So you better avoid playing any rush against protoss.
How to play afterwards in general?
After beating the rush you just go on building drones and maybe some lings or one more sunken to prevent the toss from attacking you or to prevent him from going into your main. That could cost you the game, so make sure to block your choke with a few lings. Usually you should build your gas after starting your third hatch followed by an evolution chamber to upgrade carapace. My usual strategy is always a lurker contain of the protoss with a few scourges to kill the observers in order to get time to tech to hive. While getting lurkers you can already build your 4th hatch, preferably in your main. While having the toss contained with lurkers you can take your minerals only expansion with your 5th and 6th hatch and build a spire. In the meantime you can already get your second evolution chamber and upgrade melee for lings and your second carapace upgrade. Never forget to spread your overlords around toss' base and place 2 scourges on each side to kill the shuttle, since dark templar / templar drops hurt a zerg very much, and if he kills a nice amount of your drones, you're almost lost against a good toss. As well as spreading overlords around his base, don't forget to place one overlord at each of your expansions, and if you have enough, place one overlord at every expansion to see the protoss expanding. You should as well use 2 lings to scout early that the toss does not get a hidden expansion. By containing him and gaining time by killing the observers, you get time to tech to hive. Get cracklings as soon as possible and try to keep the contain as long as possible, you should be able to have cracklings finished when he breaks out of the contain. Afterwards just pay attention to your units and micro them well. Never attack from one side, try to form a “circle” and flank the protoss army from all sides, then his psi storms are less effective than attacking him from one side. If his templars are in front, try to kill them manually with 12 lings, you can waste those 12 lings to kill 1-2 templars, it's definitely worth it. Of course you keep expanding and teching to ultralisks while getting hydra speed and hydra range as well, you have to have a good mixture of your units later on. It must contain lings, ultralisks and a few hydras as well. If it is a very tough situation where toss has the upper hand, you should build defiler as well and use darkswarms and plague. Darkswarm is very good against archons, since archons make only splash damage in the swarm, and that is like 5 damage.
Playing against different strategies:
How to play against 1 gate templar tree and fast corsair?
Just play your normal 9 hatch, 9 overlord, 9 pool fast expansion and don't get harassed too much by the first zealot. Afterward you can push drones careless because you have one sunken with 6-8 lings, he can't really attack you with 1 gate then. Just place one ling in front of his choke to see him attacking, then you can act and build one more sunken or just some lings. You better build your third hatch at your expansion and later build an evolution chamber and a spore against corsairs at your expansion. Overlords must be built at your expansion hatches therefore since the spore saves them against corairs. Just take care with lings that he can't pass your expansion with a darktemplar / zealot / corsair harassment because you usually don't have an overlord in your main. After researching your +1 carapace upgrade, go on with speedupgrade for lings, followed by lair and hydra den. While researching speedlings you can build some lings, and try to harass the protoss while expanding. The expansion of protoss comes quite early since he can save it with dark templars by killing all of your overlords. Nevertheless you can harass with 12 to 24 lings. Try to run into his main with 12 lings, while 12 other lings kill the cannons. If you're lucky you can harass him as long as your lurkers arrive and then you've already won the game. If it does not work to kill him with lurkers go on with the usual strategy: Contain him with those lurkers, get map control with scourges and lurker contain, and keep expanding and teching to hive, ultralisks, mass lings, hydras.
How to play against fast expansion followed by Zealots/Goons/Templars/…?
You should play your normal fast expansion as usual. Though you don't need 8 lings against fast expansion, 4 should be enough to kill the scouting probe and scout for hidden cannons, gates, or hidden expansions. Afterwards you can push even more drones than usual and play it like mentioned above. Get fast upgrades (you can even build double evolution chamber against fast expansion) and build your 4th hatch in main, even before making lair. Then you just go with the usual lurker contain with scourge, more hatches, more expansions, teching to hive and so on…
How to play against fast expansion followed by Corsairs & Reavers & Goons/Templars/…?
As mentioned above, you play it like against the “usual” fast expansion (zealots/goons/templars) at the beginning. Instead of teching to lurkers after your fourth hatch, you go for mass hydras and lair followed by the spire with +1 carapace upgrades immediately. As well as taking your mins only expansion you can take one or two other gas expansion which should be defended by 12 hydras to kill “little” drops of 2 reavers. Afterwards you should mix a combination of units including hydras and mutas which must have carapace upgrades and immediately tech to hive and devourer as soon as the +1 upgrade is finished and keep both upgrading muta carapace and hydras. Since you can't spread overlords around your base due to the corsairs, you should try to spread lings all over the map to see if a drop is coming up. A zerg is never the attacker when the protoss plays fast expansion with corsairs and reavers, I repeat, NEVER EVER! Your task is to defend yourself well and earn gas over gas to make mutas, devourers, guardians, hydras, lings, ultras. Ultras and lings because the protoss will later on switch to templars/zealots/etc most likely. Another important thing against this strategy is that the protoss may not take another gas expansion, thus make sure to scout the map very very well. If he gets another gas expansion it might be your death.
How to play against a 2 gate rush into Templars&Expansion?
You start start off with your general strategy which means: 9 hatch, 9 overlord, 9 pool, drones until 11. If the Protoss is heading for a hardcore rush (Zealots + 2/3 probes) you need 2 sunkens to be 100% safe. So my advice is really to build 2 sunkens, or at least 2 creep colonies and then you can cancel one sunken if the rush is easily beaten by you. Otherwise you just build 2 sunkens and you should beat the rush. Not to forget is your ling micro though, it is very important to pick out single probes when the Protoss has got a bad placement of units or is not paying enough attention. While trying to hunt probes you earn time to finish your sunkens and then you've already beaten that rush and you can keep pushing drones. As usual your third hatch follows with the gas.
After that you can continue with two different strategies, though I would recommend the safe one. I was used to play the “aggressive” one but in my later BroodWar time I rather switched to the safe strategies in all of my matchups since I am not a do-or-die player at all (except when I am desperately behind;P)
Nevertheless I'm going to describe both strategies. The aggressive one follows now:
After building your third hatch you build your gas followed by lair with your 100 gas. Afterwards you research ling speed and build your hydra den heading for lurkers as soon as lair is completed. Of course you keep pushing drones while doing that and add your second gas at your expansion after some time as well(I can't name the exact time for the second gas since I do that out of the situation). Meanwhile you should as well start pushing lings to harass the Protoss who will most likely try to expand before having templars / dark templars. Harassing in this case means that you either try to prevent him from building cannons / pylons or just killing his probe. If it's possible you can even sneak into his main base to harass there while another 12 lings are heading to kill the cannons at the expansion. In the meantime you already send out your first hydras towards the expansion of the Protoss and morph them into lurkers as soon as possible. If you harassed well you can just kill his expansion / cannons and then contain him below the choke, if he was able to build cannons you can try to sneak around those or just overroll him with many lings + lurkers if he does not have enough cannons/zealots since he probably won't have psi storm yet. Though as mentioned before, rather pick the safer option. Afterwards it is recommended to play as usual, you can just add 2 evolution chambers at one time and upgrade in both since you are behind in upgrades, though you should take your mins only expansion before and continue the usual play: Spire & scourges to prevent him from dropping and killing obs while teching to hive and so on …
The safe strategy follows up with a third hatch, gas, and evolution chamber to upgrade your carapace. Followed by mass drone pushing and if needed some lings to defend yourself, lair tech, a fourth hatch, the usual contain with lurkers / scourges, taking mins only expansion, adding a second evolution chamber, having 6 hatch with 3 bases (main, natural, mins only) and adding more expansions when you can later on push from 6 hatch constantly.
How to play against a 2 gate rush into Goons & Reavers & Expansion?
Usually you must be able to scout the main base of protoss somehow by sacrificing an overlord where you can find out if he goes for templars or reavers. If he is going for reavers and goons, you can cancel your +1 carapace upgrade if you really need the gas since goons and reavers is a do-or-die strategy for protoss. You should go for hydra den quick enough and add your second gas earlier than normal while spreading overlords around your base to see if a drop is coming up. Just make sure you don't take any damage by a drop, or at least not much damage. Simultaneously to your hydra speed upgrade you make your lair, when your lair is finished your spire has to be built immediately. If the protoss is going to attack you with goons and reavers you should try to get some time with hydra + speedlings and building more sunkens. Then wait for your first mutas and then try to overrun the protoss army with your combination of hydras, lings and mutas. If you beat that attack you should have already won the game since from now on you have the mapcontrol - you can do whatever you want actually. Pushing drones and keep expanding while the protoss most likely switches to templars afterwards. So just keep pushing hydra, lings, lurkers with upgrades and of course a very good economy which is one of the most important things. If you can, you should as well try to harass with your remaining mutas and afterwards let the protoss feel what the zerg does with him after playing do-or-die strategies. He deserves it, don't be too afraid, show him what the swarm has got for him ^_^
I hope that you enjoyed my Zerg vs Protoss guide and that it will help you in your upcoming games. If you have any questions left, feel free to post them in the comments and I will try to answer them one by one. Thanks for your attention.
By the way, how about you all beg Midian politely to write a Zerg vs Terran guide? Jamie, go for it!
PS: If there are any spelling mistakes, stfu, if you think my English is bad, stfu as well! ;P
Zerg vs Protoss Guide
Introduction:
The Zerg vs Protoss matchup is very much based on a certain feeling. The zerg player always has to anticipate what the protoss player is going to do. That means that zerg is only the reactionary part of the matchup. The protoss player must play offensive and the zerg just adapts his play to it. Being offensive as zerg like dropping very much CAN be good, but mostly it gets beaten easily by the protoss with a few cannons and 1 templar in his main / expansion. Thus you better play defensively, reactionarly and keep the game under your control. You need to have the feeling to have the maximum amount of drones though you still need to be able to beat the toss' attack. If you get that certain feeling you will be able to beat the protosses more than they beat you in the long run.
Most imporant thing:
As zerg you must have the control over the game, but how do you do that? It starts very early to lay the milestone for the game's control. Most of the protoss' players are going for a quite fast +1 attack upgrade and the way to save the map control is to have your +1 carapace upgrade earlier than the protoss his attack upgrade. Your zergling are much more worthier with the same amount of carapace and it makes the whole game a lot easier for you. Otherwise your zerglings are kind of useless with less carapace. So make sure to have your evolution chamber in time to keep the upgrades balanced! In my opinion it is enough to have 2 evolution chambers and to upgrade melee attack and carapace only, after finishing 3 upgrades, you can upgrade hydra attack as well.
How to start the game?
There are different openings for a zerg. Many zergs play 12 pool followed by an 11 expansion. On maps with not that long ways between the starting position you need to have a real good micro against an early zealot + probe rush if your sunken isn't finished yet. On some maps it can be a really bad strategy in my opinion.
Some zergs just play 12 hatch 11 pool expansion and hope not being rushed hardcorely. I don't think that this is very reasonable since it depends very much on luck. You should only play like this on maps with very long ways and where you can not get cannon rushed. (i.e. cannons behind minerals blocked by a pylon) If you play it on a normal map, you are dependant on a micro mistake of the protoss or you just need to get many drones to defend the rush.
The way I play is a 9 hatch expansion, followed by 9 overlord and 9 pool. Then you can build drones until 11 and spawn 8 zerglings right away while building 2 sunkens at the expansion if the protoss is rushing. Otherwise you just build 1 sunken to be safe or even no sunken if you see him playing fast expansion.
Playing 9 pool with speedlings is more than useless against a good protoss. He could even beat your rush with one gate built with 9th probe. So you better avoid playing any rush against protoss.
How to play afterwards in general?
After beating the rush you just go on building drones and maybe some lings or one more sunken to prevent the toss from attacking you or to prevent him from going into your main. That could cost you the game, so make sure to block your choke with a few lings. Usually you should build your gas after starting your third hatch followed by an evolution chamber to upgrade carapace. My usual strategy is always a lurker contain of the protoss with a few scourges to kill the observers in order to get time to tech to hive. While getting lurkers you can already build your 4th hatch, preferably in your main. While having the toss contained with lurkers you can take your minerals only expansion with your 5th and 6th hatch and build a spire. In the meantime you can already get your second evolution chamber and upgrade melee for lings and your second carapace upgrade. Never forget to spread your overlords around toss' base and place 2 scourges on each side to kill the shuttle, since dark templar / templar drops hurt a zerg very much, and if he kills a nice amount of your drones, you're almost lost against a good toss. As well as spreading overlords around his base, don't forget to place one overlord at each of your expansions, and if you have enough, place one overlord at every expansion to see the protoss expanding. You should as well use 2 lings to scout early that the toss does not get a hidden expansion. By containing him and gaining time by killing the observers, you get time to tech to hive. Get cracklings as soon as possible and try to keep the contain as long as possible, you should be able to have cracklings finished when he breaks out of the contain. Afterwards just pay attention to your units and micro them well. Never attack from one side, try to form a “circle” and flank the protoss army from all sides, then his psi storms are less effective than attacking him from one side. If his templars are in front, try to kill them manually with 12 lings, you can waste those 12 lings to kill 1-2 templars, it's definitely worth it. Of course you keep expanding and teching to ultralisks while getting hydra speed and hydra range as well, you have to have a good mixture of your units later on. It must contain lings, ultralisks and a few hydras as well. If it is a very tough situation where toss has the upper hand, you should build defiler as well and use darkswarms and plague. Darkswarm is very good against archons, since archons make only splash damage in the swarm, and that is like 5 damage.
Playing against different strategies:
How to play against 1 gate templar tree and fast corsair?
Just play your normal 9 hatch, 9 overlord, 9 pool fast expansion and don't get harassed too much by the first zealot. Afterward you can push drones careless because you have one sunken with 6-8 lings, he can't really attack you with 1 gate then. Just place one ling in front of his choke to see him attacking, then you can act and build one more sunken or just some lings. You better build your third hatch at your expansion and later build an evolution chamber and a spore against corsairs at your expansion. Overlords must be built at your expansion hatches therefore since the spore saves them against corairs. Just take care with lings that he can't pass your expansion with a darktemplar / zealot / corsair harassment because you usually don't have an overlord in your main. After researching your +1 carapace upgrade, go on with speedupgrade for lings, followed by lair and hydra den. While researching speedlings you can build some lings, and try to harass the protoss while expanding. The expansion of protoss comes quite early since he can save it with dark templars by killing all of your overlords. Nevertheless you can harass with 12 to 24 lings. Try to run into his main with 12 lings, while 12 other lings kill the cannons. If you're lucky you can harass him as long as your lurkers arrive and then you've already won the game. If it does not work to kill him with lurkers go on with the usual strategy: Contain him with those lurkers, get map control with scourges and lurker contain, and keep expanding and teching to hive, ultralisks, mass lings, hydras.
How to play against fast expansion followed by Zealots/Goons/Templars/…?
You should play your normal fast expansion as usual. Though you don't need 8 lings against fast expansion, 4 should be enough to kill the scouting probe and scout for hidden cannons, gates, or hidden expansions. Afterwards you can push even more drones than usual and play it like mentioned above. Get fast upgrades (you can even build double evolution chamber against fast expansion) and build your 4th hatch in main, even before making lair. Then you just go with the usual lurker contain with scourge, more hatches, more expansions, teching to hive and so on…
How to play against fast expansion followed by Corsairs & Reavers & Goons/Templars/…?
As mentioned above, you play it like against the “usual” fast expansion (zealots/goons/templars) at the beginning. Instead of teching to lurkers after your fourth hatch, you go for mass hydras and lair followed by the spire with +1 carapace upgrades immediately. As well as taking your mins only expansion you can take one or two other gas expansion which should be defended by 12 hydras to kill “little” drops of 2 reavers. Afterwards you should mix a combination of units including hydras and mutas which must have carapace upgrades and immediately tech to hive and devourer as soon as the +1 upgrade is finished and keep both upgrading muta carapace and hydras. Since you can't spread overlords around your base due to the corsairs, you should try to spread lings all over the map to see if a drop is coming up. A zerg is never the attacker when the protoss plays fast expansion with corsairs and reavers, I repeat, NEVER EVER! Your task is to defend yourself well and earn gas over gas to make mutas, devourers, guardians, hydras, lings, ultras. Ultras and lings because the protoss will later on switch to templars/zealots/etc most likely. Another important thing against this strategy is that the protoss may not take another gas expansion, thus make sure to scout the map very very well. If he gets another gas expansion it might be your death.
How to play against a 2 gate rush into Templars&Expansion?
You start start off with your general strategy which means: 9 hatch, 9 overlord, 9 pool, drones until 11. If the Protoss is heading for a hardcore rush (Zealots + 2/3 probes) you need 2 sunkens to be 100% safe. So my advice is really to build 2 sunkens, or at least 2 creep colonies and then you can cancel one sunken if the rush is easily beaten by you. Otherwise you just build 2 sunkens and you should beat the rush. Not to forget is your ling micro though, it is very important to pick out single probes when the Protoss has got a bad placement of units or is not paying enough attention. While trying to hunt probes you earn time to finish your sunkens and then you've already beaten that rush and you can keep pushing drones. As usual your third hatch follows with the gas.
After that you can continue with two different strategies, though I would recommend the safe one. I was used to play the “aggressive” one but in my later BroodWar time I rather switched to the safe strategies in all of my matchups since I am not a do-or-die player at all (except when I am desperately behind;P)
Nevertheless I'm going to describe both strategies. The aggressive one follows now:
After building your third hatch you build your gas followed by lair with your 100 gas. Afterwards you research ling speed and build your hydra den heading for lurkers as soon as lair is completed. Of course you keep pushing drones while doing that and add your second gas at your expansion after some time as well(I can't name the exact time for the second gas since I do that out of the situation). Meanwhile you should as well start pushing lings to harass the Protoss who will most likely try to expand before having templars / dark templars. Harassing in this case means that you either try to prevent him from building cannons / pylons or just killing his probe. If it's possible you can even sneak into his main base to harass there while another 12 lings are heading to kill the cannons at the expansion. In the meantime you already send out your first hydras towards the expansion of the Protoss and morph them into lurkers as soon as possible. If you harassed well you can just kill his expansion / cannons and then contain him below the choke, if he was able to build cannons you can try to sneak around those or just overroll him with many lings + lurkers if he does not have enough cannons/zealots since he probably won't have psi storm yet. Though as mentioned before, rather pick the safer option. Afterwards it is recommended to play as usual, you can just add 2 evolution chambers at one time and upgrade in both since you are behind in upgrades, though you should take your mins only expansion before and continue the usual play: Spire & scourges to prevent him from dropping and killing obs while teching to hive and so on …
The safe strategy follows up with a third hatch, gas, and evolution chamber to upgrade your carapace. Followed by mass drone pushing and if needed some lings to defend yourself, lair tech, a fourth hatch, the usual contain with lurkers / scourges, taking mins only expansion, adding a second evolution chamber, having 6 hatch with 3 bases (main, natural, mins only) and adding more expansions when you can later on push from 6 hatch constantly.
How to play against a 2 gate rush into Goons & Reavers & Expansion?
Usually you must be able to scout the main base of protoss somehow by sacrificing an overlord where you can find out if he goes for templars or reavers. If he is going for reavers and goons, you can cancel your +1 carapace upgrade if you really need the gas since goons and reavers is a do-or-die strategy for protoss. You should go for hydra den quick enough and add your second gas earlier than normal while spreading overlords around your base to see if a drop is coming up. Just make sure you don't take any damage by a drop, or at least not much damage. Simultaneously to your hydra speed upgrade you make your lair, when your lair is finished your spire has to be built immediately. If the protoss is going to attack you with goons and reavers you should try to get some time with hydra + speedlings and building more sunkens. Then wait for your first mutas and then try to overrun the protoss army with your combination of hydras, lings and mutas. If you beat that attack you should have already won the game since from now on you have the mapcontrol - you can do whatever you want actually. Pushing drones and keep expanding while the protoss most likely switches to templars afterwards. So just keep pushing hydra, lings, lurkers with upgrades and of course a very good economy which is one of the most important things. If you can, you should as well try to harass with your remaining mutas and afterwards let the protoss feel what the zerg does with him after playing do-or-die strategies. He deserves it, don't be too afraid, show him what the swarm has got for him ^_^
I hope that you enjoyed my Zerg vs Protoss guide and that it will help you in your upcoming games. If you have any questions left, feel free to post them in the comments and I will try to answer them one by one. Thanks for your attention.
By the way, how about you all beg Midian politely to write a Zerg vs Terran guide? Jamie, go for it!
PS: If there are any spelling mistakes, stfu, if you think my English is bad, stfu as well! ;P
Hope you guys/gals enjoy.
