[G] The Structure of An Effective Opening Build

Here is an example of the 14/14 Speedling Expand into Roach/Ling Push (ZvP)

Hello TL forum-goers, thank you very much for checking out my newest SC2 article. I'm a Grand Master level Zerg player and SC2 coach here to share some of the most important concepts to improvement. This is an opening I've used nearly 100% of ladder matches on my way to GM, and I want to stress that although we'll be looking at a Zerg build, the key concepts can be applied to the all-around game play of all the races. The reason this is such a relevant concept for all players is simple: I'm going to explain the macro-structure of the build – how all the pieces come together, which is not often studied in great detail but is, in my experience, incredibly important to success on the Starcraft II battlefield.

Many times when someone learns a build, they'll quickly look at the food timings and focus primarily on controlling their units. In reality, there is much more to a build than just food-relative timings. And you would think that it would make a lot more sense to start with the little pieces, to start with the micro, unit control, hotkeys, and build up and build up and then talk about the macro-structure. But that's actually backwards of what we need to do. And the reason is the large-scale structure of the build is WAY more important than any of the little things – the little things will come when the structure is there. How you organize your play is going to determine to a large degree whether your play is effective.
So, I'm going to remind you of that annoying advice that you probably got from your 5th or 6th grade English teacher when you first started essay writing – and that's “first you have to have an outline, then you have to have a rough draft, then you have to have a final draft, then you have to polish it.” And you know, this advice is pretty much right in SC2 as well.

However, most people don't work this way, most of my students do not sit down and first sketch an outline of a build, and then practice, and then make some alterations, and then practice, and then make a final build order. What they do is open a game and start playing, haha and it's what I often do also. However, if you're dedicated to learning and perfecting a build, this isn't the optimal way to proceed. Instead, the following steps should be utilized when trying to learn a new build:

Now when you're trying to do something really difficult, and I'll be honest learning a build is difficult, it puts very strong cognitive demands on your brain. So if you start with something too complex, the first things to fall apart are the details. This is why I recommend first learning the basics of a build order BEFORE getting too concerned with the subtle details.

When you start to do something that's a little bit beyond what you can easily handle, all your technique starts to fall apart, all the little things start to go – and this is what happens learning/practicing a build! You're trying to work out a very complex build, and YOU'RE thinking “I need help with my micro, I need help with my control, look at all these mistakes I'm making, etc”. The problem isn't with the micro or your control. The problem is that your brain is trying to process the complicated ideas that you're working on. And while all that mental energy is going into those ideas, the little things – the micro, the control – are starting to fall apart. So what we're trying to do when learning a build is to get our brains to help us rather than to get in our way. The best way that I know how to do this is through structure – if you figure out what the large-scale structure of your build is supposed to be, THEN you can slot in all the other little pieces and it'll work much more effectively than you might believe.

Look at the top pro Morrow: he's was known for opening 14gas/14pool nearly every single game he played Zerg. As a result, his responses to his opponents are always so crisply executed and he's rarely thrown off by things like early aggression and harassment. Clearly, a structured build is important to success and once you're comfortable with the opening, you'll be ready to proceed to the strategy. Here are the basics of the 14gas/14pool expand:

14/14Speedling 20Hatchery Expansion:
9Overlord
14Gas
14Pool
15Overlord
15Queen
17Lingsx4 (2 sets)
Start speed at 100Gas
19-20Drone
20Hatchery
19Drone
20Queen
22 Overlord
22-29Drones
29Roach Warren
30 Overlord
30-34 Drones
34 Overlord

These basic details, without any other information, should be practiced repetitively so that the order becomes second-nature. If you're frequently forgetting to get your second queen after your hatchery and an overlord right after, you're not ready to focus on anything more complicated than that. When the order in which you execute a build is flawless and you know every move before you make it, you're ready to move onto step two:

Now that you have your timings down, it's time to look at the specifics of when your buildings, units, and upgrades finish. Once you have this information, you're ready to focus on the strategy – what you're going to do with your units. In the case of the 14gas/14expand opening, your main concerns are holding any kind of early pressure and getting as much information as possible. What zerg players commonly do is drone scout fairly early (between 10-13 food) to determine if their opponent is cheesing. In the event of cheese, you would delay your expansion and mass lings, depending on the situation maybe get a spine or a warren/bane nest. Assuming a normal game without forced deviations from the above build, though.

Specific Timings to consider with the 14/14 Speedling Expand:
3:35 – 4Lings Spawn - You should kill your opponent's scouting worker. The first place you should check is your natural expansion area, then you should AGGRESSIVELY scout every nook and cranny where a probe could be hiding. You only need 1 zergling to scout the front of your opponent's base and 1-2 zergling(s) to take the xel naga(s). So, the other lings can be shift-A-clicked all around the potential proxy spots. You should only really feel safe from pressure against toss if you killed his scouting probe and have lings patrolling the front his base to prevent a probe from sneaking out.

4:00 – Hatchery – If lings spawn at 3:35, you may as well send a drone down the ramp about 5 seconds after the lings to build the hatchery at 4:00. If you're doing your job with your lings, you may be able to deny his scouting of your drone turning into a hatchery, which is always a plus. No need to give your opponent more information than needed.

4:45 – First Larva Inject Finishes – Your lings have been out for a full minute – there's no excuse not to have scouted the front of the opponent's base and to know whether you should be making lings or drones. Typically, you will want drones to 29.

5:05 – LingSpeed Finishes – Noticeably, this isn't long after your first larva inject. Thus, you can see why it's so important to scout the front with those opening lings: if he's doing early pressure, the lings/speed will finish at very close to the same time which provides you with excellent defense. If he isn't being aggressive, though, you should still have between 3-4 of your initial lings alive with speed. This is an excellent time to again scout up the ramp and see what you can find out. Also, keep scouting for proxies. Lings can now catch scouting probes/scvs VERY quickly so you should be very content to drone up with complete map control; don't mess this up by missing a spot with your lings and not scouting a proxy pylon.

6:05 – Roach warren finishes. It's important to have sufficient food/minerals saved to use this warren when it finishes, which is why you shouldn't drone higher than 34-36.

Once you have practiced the basic build order, are able to maintain consistent timings on your units/buildings/upgrades from game to game, and are comfortable utilizing the basic scouting/anti-scouting techniques I mentioned in steps 1 and 2 , you're well on your way to optimally executing this build. Still, there is a LOT you can do to improve the efficiency of your opening, and it's time to fill in as many gaps as possible. The following is a very precise and detailed explanation of the speedling expand:

Detailed 14/14Speedling 20Hatchery Expansion:
Initial 6 Drones - The ideal split is 2/2/2, but if you can do 4/2 split or a 3/3 split you're fine. You should try your absolute best to mine from the patches closer to your hatchery as opposed to the ones in the back. You can even drone-micro to ensure the closest patches are being mined by 2 drones before the further ones.

First Overlord: Rally to a safe location, typically near your opponent's base. Set up your hotkeys (I make sure I have something hotkeyed on 1-5 in the early stages to keep my left hand active and I box the mineral line with my right hand to keep it equally busy. This is spam, but it's good practice for your mechanics too.)

6-9 Drones – These drones should first be individually rallied to mineral patches that aren't being mined. Once each mineral patch is being mined, make sure you're doubling up drones on the closer patches.

9 Overlord – Rally to your expansion area. You want this to be roughly over top of where your expansion hatch is going to be, that way you can see your ramp AND see behind the mineral line. (After he has a probe in your base, you should be looking at the bottom of your ramp where your overlord has vision because you may see the angle that his probe takes when he leaves your base, helping you determine where to ling scout first)

9-10 Drone – Again, rally to a patch that's closer to the hatchery to double-mine.

10-12 Drones (1:15) – One of the two drones that you start immediately when the overlord is finished can be ralled to double up on a mineral patch that's closer to your hatchery. The other drones should be hotkeyed as control group 1 (or whatever you use to scout) and sent immediately find your opponent's base. If you happen to scout anything unusual like cheese, you will make lings constantly to defend and you may delay your hatch or possibly build a warren or baneling nest depending on what style you play. Typically, though, you will just try to scout for their gas timings, what buildings they have, etc. so that you have an idea of whether you need to make more than the additional 4 lings.

12-13 Drone – This drone can be rallied to the gas – he's going to be your assimilator.

14 Gas (1:45) – As soon as that egg that put you at 13Food is a drone, he's rallied to the gas so build it right away. You should have 100 gas right when your pool finishes.
13-14 Drone – Rally to one of the closer patches

14 Pool (2:00) – Make sure your drone is standing directly in the middle of where your pool is going to be before you get to 200. You shouldn't lose a second of having to move your drone when you could be building your pool.

14-15 Drone – Can be rallied to the gas and used as one of the 3 to fill it up.

15 Overlord (2:35) – Rallied to the outskirts of your base or some other tried-and-true location. When your gas gets to 88, you should remove the returning 3 drones one at a time to mining minerals. Make sure that your drones are all double-mining the closest patches and that none of your patches have 3 mining (You'll frequently find that your drones will triple-mine the far away patches while single-mining the closest ones. You want to select one of the 3 mining a single patch and transfer it over and you may have to right click the patch a few times if he's stubborn and won't stay on it)

15 Queen (3:10) – Inject larva immediately when finished.

17 4xLings (3:10) (Refer to Step 2 for instructions on how to get maximum benefit from these lings) It's very important to periodically scout the front to look at what units their getting, how many they have, any additional buildings, expansion timing.

19 Zergling Speed (3:10)

19-20 Drone – Rally egg down the ramp to build your expansion hatchery.

20 Queen (4:15) – Spread one creep tumor and send to expansion immediately when finished.

22 Overlord (4:30)– Arguably the most important overlord in the game because you need this overlord to have enough supply to utilize your first larva inject. If you forget the overlord, and your opponent attacks, you can't make those 10 speedlings that you otherwise would. Also, it's a great time to pull ahead in the harvester count to getting blocked is a real setback. Remember, it's essential to have scouted the front of your opponent's base to get a feel for what their doing so that you can make lings if need be. Sometimes, if they're going hellions or 1base bane lings, you may opt to build a spinecrawler in your main to transfer to your expansion ramp when the hatch finishes.

22-29 Drones (4:30 5:00)- – You should be spamming your hatchery to make drones as soon as you have the larva – there really shouldn't be any time where larva aren't being turned immediately into drone eggs. Once you're at 29 food you can refill the gas. Make sure your main just has the 3 drones in gas and 16 drones mining minerals 2 per patch (You should still be keeping an eye for any drones tripling up on the far away patches). Other drones can be rallied to your expansion hatchery and yes, you may even end up long distance mining a tad.

29 Roach Warren (5:05) – Your second queen should have just finished, so you can lay down a creep tumour.

28-30 Drones – Should likely be rallied to expansion if your main is fully saturated. Keep in mind that a lot of early-aggressive builds (4gate, hellions) will arrive at your base around this time and it may be the only time you have to build additional lings/spines in order to defend in time for your roach warren to finish. This is a vulnerable time, but you have a solid economy - which is why scouting is so important, because you can AFFORD to build 3 spines and like 16 lings to defend, but if you don't have to you'd prefer to drone. For example, if they go 3gate expansion or 1rax expand, you're going to find your spines pretty worthless.

30 Overlord (5:35)– Rally to a safe location on outskirts of your base

30-34 Drones – Should likely rally to expansion, your creep tumor should be able to be spread once more.

34 Overlord (6:00) – Rally to a safe location. Warren finishes at 6:05.

Again, thank you everyone for taking the time to read my article and I look forward to reading your comments/questions below. In short, focus first on learning the basic food timings of the build. Next, think about the strategy/scouting techniques as well as exact in-game timings, and finally, you'll be ready to really focus on the subtle details of the 14/14 speedling expand. Use these tips and you'll quickly turn what is often deemed a boring, standard build from a straight jacket into a skeleton, with lots of room for improvement and variations. And believe me, if you practice learning a builds with these steps your overall gameplay will improve and remember that once the large-scale macro aspects of your build are perfected, you'll naturally spend more time focused on improving the smaller details.