[G]ZvZ: Everything I know

For the novice, these numbers will display the first semblance of a 'build order' for a zerg player. A combination of a 14 supply gas and a 14 supply pool is a very common opening for 1 base. You can get zergling speed right as the pool finishes and its fairly economic, so it is great to start out with this. In zerg versus zerg, this is the best way to open on one base.

It is also the most frustrating and the one where people say the worst things about the match up. “Baneling zergling is just so coinflippy” “This is all based on luck” and well... you can probably add to that.

But baneling/zergling against baneling/zergling is just the thing that seperates the men from the boys. Whine like a shrub or outplay your opponent like a boss. This is where you show that you can play zerg, and if you can't handle it, you just practice harder next time. Super quick decisions and amazing micro, this is the place where you will need it the most.

Basic order for the opening

9 - overlord
14 - gas
14 - pool
16 - overlord
16 - 2 zerglings 
17 -  Zergling speed as pool finishes
17 - Queen as pool finishes

This build is very reactive. You respond to what your opponent is doing to counter it. That's why scouting is so big right now. This is why I always dronescout on 9 food to the nearest spawning position. To eliminate more bases and to scout out early pool strategies.

And if I don't see an early pool, I'll stick around and see his gas and pool timing. From that, I can see wether he is going for a big baneling play, or a roach play. I can also see if he goes for a fast expand.

If you scout a gas that goes up sooner than yours ( a 13 gas ) you can go back, knowing that he will probably do a baneling attack on you because he wants the gas early. If you see a pool, then gas, you can probably say that he is going roaches because he doesnt want the zergling speed as early.

With the two zerglings, you can slip into his base and verify wether or not he is going banelings or roaches. Although this is only used to be a 100% correct, and you don't have to get them inside.



Ah, the wonderful speedling/baneling. Amazing to look at, exhausting to play against. If you scout this opening, you are very hard pressed to defend your absolute best.

You need to go banelings yourself against this, but there are some slight tricks that can put you slightly ahead.

When you make your first 2 zerglings, just make one drone right after. In the case that you are fighting a 14/14 baneling attack, you are one drone ahead of your opponent if he is attacking you.

Also, when you reach your first 80 gas, take one drone of gas. This gives you more minerals and only delays your baneling nest slightly. Ofcourse you put the drone back into gas when you put the nest down, to give you a good amount of gas for when you need to morph your defensive banelings.

And here are some micro tips for this very tough to deal with pressure.


1.Seperate hotkeys for zerglings and banelings.

This one is a fairly simple thing to remember, and highly effective!
Nothing is worse than moving your banelings towards the opponents zerglings, then having all your zerglings lead the way. Not only being a nuisance for your own banelings, but threatening your own zerglings by having them out in the open before the banelings.

Personally I keep my banelings on 2 and zerglings on 1. I constantly make sure that whenever I make banelings I add the cocoons to the 2 hotkey and control-shift click on them and have the zergling hotkey clean of any banelings. It's only a very slight action to do, but helps keeping the battles much more managable.

2.Keep your banelings spread.


This one is also a very, very major improvement that will drastically help your banelings become more difficult to deal with. The reason you want your banelings spread is for the simple fact that 2 banelings can kill banelings in a splash area. For example, two well placed banelings can take out 10 banelings of your opponent should they be clumped up.

Whenever you defend, you can spread them out. And right before you attack or push the opponents zerglings, always spread them beforehand, when you're moving long distances or go up ramps, just move the clumped up banelings the opposite way for a little while. It gives you a nice dotted line that is very hard to deal with with just banelings and zerglings.

3.Move your banelings, do not attack move.

This one will help you against 'baneling sniping' and detonating on banelings. A baneling will always hit, regardless if an enemy unit takes it out or you attack with it. Therefore it is better to just move your banelings towards your opponents zerglings, because of a very simple trick that will punish an attack moved baneling. A baneling detonating on a single zergling will basically trade 25 minerals for 50 minerals and 25 gas, I E you actually LOST the engagement.

Also, if you have your banelings spread out defensively, put them on hold position. A zergling can move forward and lure a baneling and make it detonate because it isn't being controlled.

4.Shift-click one or two zerglings to snipe chasing banelings.


If you're being chased by a pack of banelings, or you just see some banelings wandering around alone, you can simply move your zerglings towards them, shift-click on the zergling icons twice and move that group back and reset your zergling hotkey to that group. Meanwhile, use those two single zerglings to focus down any banelings. It is cost effective if you kill a baneling with 2 or less zerglings, any more and it gives the enemy a nicely costeffective detonation.

5.Shift-add eggs to your zergling controll group.

This is something of personal prefference. If you're turning your larva into zerglings, you can shift-add them to your zergling controll group. In my case I would hit 4szzz ( select hatchery – select larvae – make zergling x 3 ) then click shift-1, which adds those eggs to the 1 controll group.

This will keep all your zerglings under your controll even if they have just hatched! Preventing them to walk into a bad rally point and just run blindly into a field of banelings.

6.Losing 4 drones is better than losing your zergling numbers.

Alright, this might seem a little bit controversial. After all, in these games of low dronecount we need as much drones as we can. Although in case of defending a baneling barrage, it is better to take a dent in your dronecount compared to your zerglings.

The logic behind this is when you lose zerglings and you are under attack, you have to rebuild those zerglings to stay alive. If you're building zerglings while you are behind because you have to stay alive, your enemy basically has you in a vice grip where you cannot escape. He has a better economy and both of you are just building units, this can only work out better for him. Whereas if you have a large pack of zerglings, you can deny zergling agression for a little while until he remorphs his banelings. This gives you time to redrone up a little and even it out, it'll make the next engagement harder, but atleast you're still in the race.

7.Spawning pool placement + queen positioning.


Even a simple thing like changing where you place your spawning pool helps you in zergling/baneling wars. If you place it touching your gas and leaving a gap between the hatchery and the pool, you both have something that will stop your opponent from placing an evolution chamber between your gas and hatchery. This happens often on Xel Naga and severely cripples your gas income and because of that you'll have a devastating disadvantage in baneling wars.

If you put a queen on hold position between the spawning pool and the hatchery, you also have a solid wall where banelings cannot move past. This forces them to move around your barricade, giving you time to respond to the situation.

8.Don't sweat about one baneling

One baneling cannot kill drones, it merely weakens them into the red HP. So if there is just one single baneling moving towards your mineral line and you have a healthy stack of drones, there is no need to panic and do something drastic. Infact, sometimes its best to just let it do what it wants and focus on more important things like hitting your injections and sniping morphing banelings.

9.Following an overlord with banelings to stop them from being lured.

This one is really new to me, and also a really smart trick that I learned from listening to Mr Bitter when he was casting the GO4SC2 finals between Nerchio and sLivko.

When you have defensive banelings, select them all and click on an overlord. This will make them huddle up around the overlord, following it. This is simular to hold positioning them, however they will never detonate even if a ling is attacking them, unless ofcourse it gets killed by it.

The downside of this is that an overlord isnt out on the map, so your scouting will suffer slightly for this trick. So this is a very situational usage of banelings, but it is easy to execute and frees up your actions so you don't have to be as fast all the time.