EPTHi everyone, I'm
Gerbil from 4Kings. I'm a grandmaster Zerg from North America, and ZvP has been my best matchup since release, even when people complained that P>Z. For the last year or so I've been building out the timings on a ZvP style that suits me, and today I want to present the culmination of that to you.Table Of Contents
0.0 Overview of ZvP deathball style
1.0 1 Base Protoss
1.1 Opening Build Order
1.2 1 Gateway Expand
1.3 3 Gateway Expand
1.4 4 Gate [1 Gas]
1.5 4 Gate [2 Gas]
1.6 Stargate/Blink/Dark Templar
1.7 Forge Expand
2.0 2 Base Protoss
2.1 Build Order Continuation
2.2 4/5/6 Gateway Rush
2.3 7/8 Gateway Attack [With observer and/or Blink]
2.4 Stargate
2.5 Ground army [with or without Robo] into third base
3.0 3+ Base Protoss
3.1 Overview of lategame plan
3.2 Flushing out the midgame
3.3 Crafting the deathball
4.0 Replays
5.0 Conclusion
5.1 Acknowledgements
0.0 Overview of ZvP deathball style
The ZvP style contained in this guide is very strategic, calculated and based on mapping out solid decisions throughout the course of the game. In general, I see 2 ways of playing ZvP: trying to play to be able to beat their army in a straight up fight, or use tactics/counters/base trades to win. Both are strong, however I personally prefer engineering an army that can consistently beat your opponent head on. The style itself consists of heavy roach/ling play in the early to midgame, into adding infestors, and then hive tech and branching out to whatever tech tree best counters the composition of the opponent.
1.0 1 Base Protoss
1.1 Opening Build Order
9 Overlord
12 Spawning pool
16 Queen [constant inject]
18 Make 2 Extractors, 4 Zerglings, Cancel 1 Extractor
19 Overlord
19 Hatchery
22 Zergling Speed, pull 3 off gas
22 Overlord
26 Queen [first tumor in main, then tumors in natural]
31 Overlord
*At 30 supply make a drone and overlord in your main to decrease the larva count there to 2
31 Queen [constant inject in natural
36 Put 3 back on gas
Notes:
Yes my standard build is 12 pool in ZvP. There have been countless arguments about the relative efficiencies of builds like these, let me sum up the reasoning for a 12 pool without going too far off point:
- Since the pool comes earlier than a standard 14/14, the first 4 lings can quickly kill any probe or pylon blocking the natural hatchery *reliably* [reliability in any build makes it much easier to optimize, and focus on execution].
- Gas is delayed relative to a 14/14. This is because an early zergling speed is very rarely useful in these stages of ZvP. By taking gas on 18, Zergling speed will finish at 5:50 which leaves enough time to counter a 4 gate push.
- Destiny notably uses an 11 pool in the matchup instead. Through calculations [sc2calc.org], it seems as though by the time the two builds converge, the 11 pool will be 5 seconds ahead, however the zergling speed is 25 seconds later. As I said above, those 25 seconds can help deal with 4 gates more effectively. Both builds can survive a 4 gate, but an 11 pool will have you go further out of your way with more spines/queens for defense.
Always use your second overlord to scout around your natural for proxies or cannon rushes. This build is timed such that if you see a pylon going up and pull 3-4 drones immediately, you can shut down nearly every cannon rush cold.
When the initial zerglings get to his natural, it is advised to put 1 behind the mineral line to spot for their expansion, 2 in a safe spot to retreat, and 1 near the ramp to see if a stalker or sentry pops out after the zealot. If his zealot isn't made in time, as can happen with greedy protoss builds, only send 1 zergling into his main. It isn't worth it to lose all of your zerglings for a chance at a probe kill or two, and the scouting information you get won't be useful enough to warrant the sacrifice.
If Protoss chronoboosts a stalker and does some zealot/stalker aggression, don't panic. continue to drone as much as you can, just make sure not to transfer drones to your natural until he leaves. Generally you can hold out until around 34-36 supply before making 8 more zerglings. The 2-3 queens you will have at this point can also help. The biggest thing to worry about with this aggression is losing overlords; make sure to move them into safe positions, and to pre-emptively replace one if you think it is doomed.
1.2 1 Gateway Expand
Scouting it:
1 Gateway expand is the easiest to scout, because all you need to check for is a nexus before 5:15. If the nexus starts closer to 4:45, you know they only have 1 gas. The zergling you hid in the mineral line is extremely useful for seeing the nexus.
Build order continuation:
Drone to 44
44 Overlord
44 Take 2 more gases
42 Evolution chamber [+1 Missile Attack when finished]
44 Overlord
44 Lair
50 Roach warren
52 Overlord
52 Start producing around 20 Zerglings
Notes:
Once you see the nexus, you're free to drone and proceed to the midgame. By droning up to 52 supply, you should have 44 drones, which leaves full saturation on 3 gas and 3 extra drones for your 3rd base/4th gas/infestation pit later on. The reason you immediately switch into ling production is to get map control vs any early 2 base timings, which is the next thing you need to worry about.
1.3 3 gate expo
Scouting it:
3 gate expo is harder to scout and should make you sweat a little. By 5:30 if the nexus hasn't started, you need to be prepared for a 1 base push, so this is the point where you should start taking precautions. A standard 3 gate expo into macro actually sets Protoss fairly far behind in the midgame, which is why making defense in case of 1 base is suitable without losing out economically. 3 Gate expo should plant the nexus between 5:45 and 6:10. The key thing to look for is the sentry count. If he has 3 sentries by 5:45 you know he isn't teching past cybernetics core, so you can pin him on 3 gate or 4 gate and thus don't need an evolution chamber.
Build order continuation:
36 Roach warren
40 Overlord
42 2 Spine Crawlers
*at this point you should see the nexus, if not see section 1.5
ASAP take 2 more gas, lair, evolution chamber
Drone to 49, then start making around 20 zerglings
Notes:
When facing a 3 gate expo, you need to be more conservative in general because Protoss can be fairly aggressive, and there's always the possibility of the infamous nexus-cancel-4-gate. 41 drones is exactly enough to saturate 3 gas, so you'll need more drones when you want to continue expanding/teching, but for now you just want to be safe against any imminent pushes. Be VERY careful on tracing his army movements, and make sure to keep tabs on if any probes leave his base. If you lose some of your scouting zerglings, it is critical that you immediately replace them. If he moves out, you want to keep looking for forward pylons or a probe with his army or anything that looks like he wants to be aggressive.
1.4 4 gate [1 gas]
Scouting it:
1 gas 4 gate is very powerful but if Zerg reacts properly the game is quickly over. Generally it will look like 1-2 stalker pressure with a zealot and a probe, and then warp in 4 more stalkers. It's a very simple build and also has a very simple counter: pure speedling. Since you should have your initial zerglings ready to walk into his main if he moves out, you should see this coming with decent time to prepare. A probe moving out with a stalker so early on in the game is a big tell.
Build order continuation:
ASAP 2 spine crawlers [optional: pull off gas]
Zerglings until you've held.
Notes:
If you can see this before you've hit 34 supply, you should have enough zerglings to surround and kill his 6 stalker 1 zealot army just as it warps in. Any later, and you need to play defensive, hiding by your spines.
If Protoss delays the attack past 2 warp ins, you need to start adding more spines because your zerglings will become cost ineffecient vs zealots once he has 8+
1.5 4 gate [2 gas]
Scouting it:
4 gate has been around forever, so much that Protoss nowadays tend to whip it out only in important settings when the opponent least expects. If you don't see a nexus by 6:10, you can be sure that Protoss is up to something. If this is the case and you see at least 400 gas worth of units on the field, you can be relatively sure Protoss is 4 gating you. Which is good! because when scouted properly, 4 gate tends to crumble if you don't cut too many corners.
Build order continuation:
36 Roach warren
40 Overlord
42 2 spine crawlers
44 Overlord
[still no nexus, notice 4+ sentries in his army]
ASAP make 1-2 more spines behind your current spines
Make roaches as your gas permits, and the rest zerglings until you've held.
Notes:
If you see his plan before he's far out of his base, you can make a few zerglings before roaches to threaten counters, or attacks on the probe/proxy pylon. Don't counter with too much though, I recommend just 4 zerglings and if he morphs a single unit, retreat and help defend the main army.
It is important to move your spines somewhat far out of your base to protect your ramp from getting forcefielded. Also, fighting too far into your natural usually means forcefield can restrict your unit movement absurdly and you'll quickly be in an unwinnable position.
In general, you want zerglings to be attacking stalkers and sentries and avoid zealots. Sniping sentries can be great too, as long as you don't get your entire army forcefielded to death.
1.6 Stargate/Blink/Dark Templar
Scouting it:
Unfortunately, being able to differentiate between these 3 builds just by watching Protoss' front is nearly impossible. Fortunately, we can group them up into 'tech builds', as they have similar tells, and they also happen to have similar counters. Determining if one of these is occuring is simple: The nexus won't be up before 6:10 and Protoss won't have more than 250 gas worth of units at absolute most, and even this is pushing it for a dt build.
Build order continuation:
6:00 Evolution chamber + cut drones
Continue to build only queens and zerglings
ASAP 1 Spore between natural ramp and mineral line, and 1 in the main mineral line.
Notes:
By 6:00 you should have 32-36 drones which is more than enough to outproduce any 1 base protoss.
If A nexus comes down any time before 6:45, it's a dt expand build. The lings you have been making during this time will surve their purpose now, use queens and rallied zerglings to defend your base while denying his natural with ~30 zerglings. If you take less than 5 drone losses and cancel his nexus once, you're unmistakably ahead.
Against any type of stargate build you should also be able to cancel his nexus if he tries to get it before 7:30, unless he camps void rays in his natural which allows you to macro uncontested. This is where your early 3 queens shine, and if he waits for a decent air force you should have upwards of 5 queens.
Against blink stalkers, the most important part is keeping up with injections and overlords, because zerglings use up a lot of larva. Feel free to drop 1-2 spines and use your excess gas to tech up to hydralisks. In general you want to wait until he approaches you, and move to the opposite side of his army to get a surround off. Even if you only kill shields and he escapes by using terrain, You should retain most of your army and continue to outproduce him. Counterattacking with 4 zerglings can also help slightly in this position.
1.7 Forge Expand
Forge expand PvZ is quickly becoming the norm, however since it hasn't been around for nearly as long as gateway expand, I haven't yet developed conclusive timings built around it, so for all intents and purposes this section is under construction, and likely requires a full guide in and of itself.
Rough build order:
*If possible I cancel my building gas, otherwise stop mining from gas or cancel speed
21 Queen
23 Overlord
29 Send a drone to the 3rd
29 Overlord
34 Hatchery
34 2 gas
Continue to drone up to 62 supply on 3 base
*Spend gas on zergling speed -> Lair -> +1 missile attack -> roaches
[Delay lair if they go 2 gates]
Macro hatch, mass roach ling to defend any timings
Get up to 6 gas, take a 4th and proceed down the tech path of your choice.
Again, this is by no means necessarily worth following, as it's just the current state of what I'm testing in the matchup.
2.0 2 base protoss
2.1 Build Order Continuation
*When lair finishes
Roach Speed + Burrow + Overseer
*morph the overlord closest to him, immediately send it through his main
2.2 4/5/6 Gateway Rush
Scouting it:
By the midgame, timings start to get more vague, but there are still useful tells. In particular, for one of these early 2 base timings, either seeing the gateways themselves, only 2 gas, or an unusually high sentry count (8+) tends to give it away.
Continuation:
Remember the 20 zerglings we made before lair? They are going to come in handy immensely. You want to use these to aggressively threaten a counter attack. This means, instead of waiting until Protoss is halfway across the map, only wait until he is one quarter of the way or less. What this will do is encourage him to move back with his army to clean up, which critically buys you enough time for burrow to finish and to get a high roach count. IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THAT YOUR MOVEMENTS WITH THIS SMALL ZERGLING FORCE CAN WIN OR LOSE YOU THE GAME. If you force a round of zealots warped into his mineral line, or you are denied entry altogether, no loss for you. Simply use this strike force to pick off proxy pylons, probes or ultimately aid in the engagement.
Otherwise, continue to make roaches until you hold. Again, focus on injects and overlords because it can be hard to spend all your money with only 2 hatcheries. Try not to engage his army until burrow finishes, and when it does make sure you aren't wasting roaches that could be burrowed. At some point during this you should feel less pressure on you and/or an accumulation of money. Take a 3rd base, 4th gas and start your infestation pit at this point.
2.3 7/8 Gateway Attack [With observer and/or Blink]
Scouting it:
The key is to differentiate this push from the above early 2 base push. While a 6 gate can hit as early as 8:30, these heavier 2 base timings tend to wait until 10:30 or so. The biggest difference between this push and a 4/5/6 gate is the probe count. While a 4/5/6 gate can cut probes as early as 34, 7/8 gate pushes w/ tech generally wait until 50 probes or more before cutting. Again you will see a relatively high sentry count (8+) with this timing, and often a constantly chronoboosted forge, to coordinate some upgrade finishing with the push.
Continuation:
By the time your overseer finished morphing, you should notice that his probe or gas count was too high for an early gateway timing. At this point, you should ASAP make 15-18 more drones. Ideally you want 2.5 saturated mineral lines and 4-5 gas to defend. Also, ASAP start your infestation pit and 4th gas.
When the infestation pit finishes, immediately check your gas. 4-5 infestors is a good number, so make sure you make the right mix of roaches and zerglings to end up with enough gas to make the 4-5 infestors when pathogen glands is 30 seconds done. In general, if you make a lot of zerglings you will have a surplus of money so you can spend it on 3-4 spines, which also allows your infestors to come out earlier.
Your 20 zergling strike force can also be utilized in this case, however by this point Protoss will generally be more equipped to handle it, so mainly focus on killing the probe or helping in a surround.
Every once in a while, your Protoss opponent will be so intent on killing your third base that he will be willing to give you a favourable army trade to do so. If you suspect this is the case, try to take another base somewhere else on the map before your 3rd dies, so you can transfer drones and keep up your economy. Losing your 3rd isn't the end of the world, but if it happens without Protoss sustaining significant army losses you'll be in a very bad position.
2.4 Stargate
Scouting it:
The hardest part about scouting Protoss doing stargate builds is not seeing the stargate itself, but figuring out how it will be followed up. The main transitions of 2 base stargate are: heavy air play (6+ phoenixes), a gateway timing, or robo for colossus, and each of these has different optimal reactions. In terms of scouting the stargate itself, the timing usually lines up so that your overseer is morphed and in his main 10-15 seconds after the first void ray is out. Besides seeing the stargate itself, a medium sized sentry count of 4-6 at the 7:30 mark is a good indicator of stargate play. The last tell I'll mention is mostly only relevent at higher levels, but stargate tends to follow up 1 gate expand more often than it does for 3 gate expand. Some reasons for this are: a stargate after 1 gateway is used to hold of roach attacks, and stargate does not synergize well with a 3 gate expand, since both components tend to delay the protoss tempo in the matchup. With the one exception of very heavy pressure, a combination 3 gate expo and light air should give Zergs too much time to relax and drone/tech for the later stages.
Response:
As soon as you see a stargate, your immediate reaction should be to start a 4th gas, make 8ish more drones, start 2 queens and start a hydralisk den. As well, if you don't have a 3rd base started at this point, start it and focus heavily on spreading creep towards it. [For more details on which bases to take as a 3rd, see section 4.0 further down]. Also, when you have the time, start a spore at each base and one additional spore in your natural which you will use you walk over to your 3rd.
Although air units can move wherever they want around the map, remember that you should NOT concede map control. Make sure you keep watch towers and chokes leading out of his base covered with zerglings, by running around any void rays. If a void ray is approaching a watch tower, a tip is to send your zergling a few screens away on the minimap, and shift click back to the tower. The void ray is likely just passing by so you can easily retake the watch tower. This is very important for determining if they're pushing behind the air.
At first, when the hydralisk den finishes you should make 6-10, depending on how far apart your bases are. If you seem to be gas starved at this point, you can delay hydralisk range upgrade until later, as it's not as important as raw numbers. If you see 3+ phoenixes being rallied, you can continue to add more queens and hydras. As a rough estimate, you want to spend 25% more gas on hydralisk than he does on his air tech (including the building and upgrade). Remember, it's ok to invest more gas in hydras because they contribute much more dps to an engagement.
Continuation:
You should be able to tell fairly soon after the first 1-2 void rays if he's going for a follow up 6 gate. Fortunately, your build up to this point should have no trouble dealing with this. As soon as you see his army move out, respond as you would to a vanilla 6 gate, by making nonstop roaches and using your ling strike force to be annoying. With the added dps of your hydras and queens [you could have 5-7 of these by now], you should tear through their army. Be careful however to try not to let your hydras/queens take damage from stalkers, as a potentially tough situation could occur if you clean up his ground army but run out of anti air. As such, you should also save transfuses for queens/hydras. If your macro is good, your stream of roaches with burrow micro should be enough to tank.
Assuming he's not doing the above timing, you can continue to make drones up to a total of roughly 54, and pull two drones to start your gas at your third when the hatchery is 60% done. At this point you'll also want to grab overlord speed, +2 missile attacks, and start producing roaches to keep a safe army size.
By the time your 3rd is comfortably semi-saturated, you need to make a decision to add either an infestation pit, or a spire. It's clear that you don't have the gas to support both tech trees, and although infestors are the better tech choice vs most ground armies, a 2 base colossus all in will be near impossible to stop without corruptors. To make this call, we will get some scouting information. morph an overseer [which will now have speed] and suicide it into his main to scout for the support bay. At the same time, right click 3-4 zerglings through his army to check if a colossus is already out.
If a colossus is out by 11:30 and Protoss hasn't taken his third base by 12:30, It's likely they will be all ining. In this case, make a spire and produce only roaches, corruptors and a few spine crawlers if your resource ratio demands it until the threat is over.
In all other cases, this is the point to start an infestation pit, saturate the rest of your third base and proceed to the later stages of the game.
2.5 Ground army [with or without Robo] into third base
Scouting it:
This is a no brainer. It's what Protoss is doing if you've ruled out the above possibilities. [Barring some very irregular builds like 2 base zealot archon, or carrier rush, which won't be discussed here since this guide is already quite long.] This should make you happy, because now you get to play a late game ZvP, and what could be more fun!?
Response:
Before Protoss necessarily takes a 3rd, once you rule out the above timings, immediately finish saturating your 3rd [66 drones total, maybe a few more to be on standby for your 4th base/static defense], and start or continue teching towards infestors. Generally around when your infestation pit finishes you want to produce more zerglings than roaches, so you can save gas for 6-7 infestors. One other side effect of producing zerglings over roaches however is mineral accumulation. No matter how good your injects are, 3 hatcheries producing lings with 48 drones on minerals will start to accumulate money. Use this to take your 4th base, and take the gasses at your 4th when the hatchery is half done.
3.0 3+ base Protoss
Scouting it:
Ok just find the nexus -_-; there are no tricks for this, in fact there is no reason for this section here.
Philosophy:
Combating 3+ base Protoss is where a most Zergs used to have trouble, and some still do. The fact of the matter is, any reasonable attack timing for a 3 base Protoss will be when Protoss is close to max and Zerg is almost definitely maxed. The problem Zerg players have is that at this point, it's no longer a game of numbers; If Protoss completely stabilizes on 3 base, the window for "sauron" zerg is over. Instead, the way Zerg can overcome Protoss at this stage in the game is to balance economic advantages [read: not necessarily just worker counts, this could manifest itself in a base lead and thus gas lead], and maximizing cost efficiency of engagements. If you think Protoss uses a "death ball" to win, then we're going to beat them at their own game. The difference is that we understand that our death ball isn't *quite* as solid, but we make up for it by having the money to replace parts of our army more easily. This is one of the main reasons I emphasized getting infestors out in the midgame, as they are one of the most cost efficient units in the game, with their efficiency only increasing as they build up energy.
3.1 Overview of lategame plan
Step 1: Try to kill his sentries and stop him from maxing out too quickly with a roach ling infestor attack, while teching to hive.
Step 2: Carefully gauge his army composition, make the most cost efficient [but still timely] army we can imagine, and ram it into his army.
Step 3: Repeat step 2 until the game is over. Yes, it's that simple.
3.2 Flushing out the midgame
Explanation
An attack at around the 15 minute mark can accomplish a lot of things. Not only can you often get a chain fungal off on sentries and lower their overall unit count to keep their deathball weak, but it also helps prevent your infestors from sitting around at max energy, and helps you cycle your units for a stronger maxed army (remember what I said about maximizing army efficiency in the late game? roaches and zerglings are great units, but they aren't the way to do this!).
Execution
Although I said attack around the 15 minute mark, the timing is really dependant on other factors, the biggest of which, is the Protoss's colossus count. In particular, you want to hit with a pure roach/ling/infestor army when he has 1, or at most 2 colossus out. The reason this is your trigger is because colossus to some extent counter all three of these units, so they will largely determine how cost efficient of an idea it is to attack at that time. If Protoss isn't going colossus at all, feel free to jump from 150 to 190 supply with roaches, use the last 10 supply on zerglings, and attack just as the rallies meet your main army. If Protoss is going colossus too fast for this, i.e. they already have a 1-2 colossus before their third base is done, you should instead wait for a spire and a reasonable amount of corruptors before making this first trade. The attack will be delayed, and will now have the secondary purpose of keeping his colossus count low.
When you're rallying roaches and lings to prepare for this attack, you gas will accumulate which allows you to start your hive, spire, and second evolution chamber.
3.3 Crafting the deathball
Explanation
As I said before, we're trying to maximize the cost efficiency of our army. But this efficiency is circumstantial to his army composition at the time. A common misconception among Zerg players is that it's always important to spend your money until you hit max. In fact, 9 times out of 10 you want to max as slowly as possible, to get the most of your supply. The one exception being of course if an attack is imminent.
There are some tricks you can use to spend your money quickly without decreasing the overall cost efficiency of your army. Firstly, you can make 3-4 additional drones at each base, and use them for 1 spore and 2-3 spines as dark templar or warp prism defense. Secondly, When you're getting ready to attack you can use all the drones at a base to make spore crawlers, spend the extra supply in zerglings and cancel the spores, to get something like 210/200 supply. Lastly, even though 4 bases is enough mine optimally with all the drones you could use, don't stop there! A lot of improving max army strength is replacing high mineral units with high gas units, so I encourage you to go to 5, 6, 7+ bases when you have the freedom to.
Execution
Here I'll give some general tips for maximizing your max army strength vs different Protoss compositions.
If you find yourself with 4 or less bases worth of gas, you'll likely end up with a surplus of minerals and find the desire to use it on mass zerglings. Don't do it! While zerglings are always a good idea for counter attacks, they are nearly useless in the late game, provided Protoss has sufficient AOE [colossi, templar, archons]. Use the minerals on queens and roaches instead. Queens are excellent at supporting and magnifying the strength of broodlords with transfuse, and for only 2 population and 0 gas, their anti air dps isn't half bad either.
When asked about good units to get against colossi, most zergs will respond with the obvious: roaches on the ground, corruptors in the air. While this is better than most options, don't forget that broodlords, if you can afford them, are a better answer than both of those. This is because broodlords create an extra of "depth" to the zerg army, and as such end up tanking a lot of hits for your less expendable ground units. When deciding if you should morph corruptors into broodlords, consider that corruptors are better for removing colossi from an army and then backing off to regroup, while broodlords are better at beating the colossus based army head on.
Often you will have a choice to get a huge amount of broodlords and a mediocre number of infestors, or vice versa. Think 9 broodlords + 5 infestors, or 5 broodlords + 12 infestors, both supporting your main ground force. The biggest factor for this decision should be the Protoss's standing count of anti broodlord units: mainly blink stalkers, archons and void rays. If these units make the main component of his army, opt for more infestors, and otherwise go for the broodlords.
In the late game, even though roaches are one of the least supply efficient units in the game, they are still a necessary part of your army, giving it a strong backbone and surviving long enough for your infestors+broodlords to tear apart the Protoss lines. Generally when deciding on the number of roaches you want to make, ask yourself how long you want the battle to last before you need to retreat. With a lot of roaches, you could use the extra time to kill a batch of sentries with infestors or a batch of colossi with corruptors. However, this actually lowers the likelihood of you coming out ahead in that particular battle. In terms of your powerful ground units, consider replacing most of your roaches with hydras in the late game. They're less tankish, but they deal far more dps and at a safer range as well. One more benefit of adding hydras to your mix is similar to the point I made about broodlings vs colossi. The more variety of units you have attacking from different ranges, the less clumped up your army will be and therefore colossi will have less overall damage output.
Another last potential addition your now unbeatable maxed zerg army are baneling bombs. I'm referring to when you drop banelings out of overlord on to his army. Banelings again are very supply efficient units; at 0.5 supply each, 10-20 of them can take out a massive clump of your opponent's deathball. In particular, banelings are great at picking off high templar and stalkers. Banelings bombs are recommended when you really have more money than you can spend, and he has a lot of stalkers or templar in his army.
One of the hardest things to deal with in late game ZvP is the mothership. This is because it forces zergs to do several things that they otherwise wouldn't, namely spread their army very well and make a sizeable number of corruptors. Motherships however aren't imbalanced as a lot of people think; they're just very strong. Keep your units spread out a lot so that vortex can only grab at most 1/3rd, and make sure to distribute your units evenly as well, so you can't lose every infestor or overseer in the vortex. Keep in mind that 9 times out of 10, retreating with the units not caught in vortex is the better idea, just because of the positioning Protoss can get while you're trapped in there. One very useful trick is to throw 20+ infested terrans outside of the vortex, so they can deal heavy damage once your units come out [see my replay vs Gatored for a good example of this].
End of the Theory section:
Before we go any further, I need to congratulate you, the reader, for getting this far. It sure wasn't easy for me either, this is longest piece of writing I've ever done. Now that we're done with that big chunk of knowledge and theory, I want to take you through a few applications and examples of the style in action.
4.0 Replays
Replay Link: http://drop.sc/packs/410
Overview:
I struggled to find examples of a lot of the situations I've described above, as I've been playing this style for almost a year now and the vast majority of my games aren't relevent because they were played on a different patch [and nobody likes watching old replays].
Please note that most of these players are my friends and/or practice partners, and they might not have been playing great at the time so don't judge them for their mistakes. Also, any banter is 100% friendly.
EDIT: CookieMaker has cast the attero replay where he explains a lot of the concepts of this guide. Feel free to check it out at http://blip.tv/cookiemakertv/zvp-gerbil-vs-attero-playing-against-3base-colossus-5856227
Replay Notes:
vs Attero:
I scout both fast colossus and a third base, so I'm free to drone straight up to 80 and take 4 bases immediately. I attack with roach infestor corruptor and successfully lower his colossus count. Then I morph broodlords, and win after 2 attacks.
vs jemag:
Again I see three base and colossus, but faster third and slower colo. Again I attack roach infestor corruptor to kill colossus, morph broodlords, and win after 2 attacks.
vs Kangpo:
Once again I see him going for a 3rd base and colossus before the 12 minute mark, which allows me to saturate on 3 base, take a 4th and prepare for a roach/infestor/corruptor attack. I kill his 4 colossus with corruptors. Morph broodlords, get a big advantage with 1 prolonged attack with reinforcements.
vs Gatored:
He does 2 base air, 5 phoenix into 3rd base. Very late game with brood, infestor, corrpuptor, hydra, and banelings. Gatored makes use of mothership at 20 minutes on 4 base, I respond with infested terrans outside the vortex. 3 big engages, 30 minutes.
vs Netolip:
He does 2 base gateway/immortal pressure into 3 base colossus. I abuse the mobility of lings to punish him when he moves around the map, and show how roach ling infestor can even beat a Protoss army with 4 colossus.
vs OpTiKzErO:
I see him get a twilight council and 3rd base, but I make the mistake of not scouting colossus. I try to attack with roach ling infestor, see 3 colossus, and back off to immediately make a spire. He tries to push, but I buy time with roach ling counter attacks while waiting for corruptors and building energy on infestors. When his push finally arrives, I have corruptors and crush it, winning the game.
vs TheoRy:
He does an incredibly early 2 base timing, off 5 gates and only 32 probes. I make the mistake of not countering with lings, so I lose my 3rd base. Since I finish burrow at this time, I fight off his army while taking another 3rd. He follows up with a heavy gateway army while going towards colossus and a 3rd, but I deny his 3rd twice, forcing him to go all in on 2 base. I defend this by engaging with roach infestor corruptor fungaling long enough to kill his colossus, and then replenishing with roaches as I absorb his attack to my fourth.
vs Nipo:
I scout a void ray and robotics facility on 2 base with my overseer, and make the mistake of assuming he won't push behind his void ray. I surrender map control by leaving my lings at my natural instead of around the map. Because of this, I take a lot of damage from his gateway follow up. Fortunately, he didn't all in and instead became passive while taking a third. This allowed me to sit on my drone lead and do a roach hydra corruptor attack to clean up his colossus, but instead I end up winning the game because he didn't punish me as hard as he could have earlier.
vs FAGGLE:
He does a 1 gate expand into 3 gate pressure, I get an advantage by countering with a small amount of lings and defending at home with roaches, thanks to some mismicro by him. He transitions into a 2 base immortal attack. I engage him in the middle once my infestors finish, and trade favourably with fungal growith and roaches with zerglings rallied. Afterwards I slightly overdrone, going to 65 instead of a safer 55. This gives him some momentum to push near my base, all in at this point, but by mixing my composition between zerglings vs his stalker/immortal and roaches vs his zealots, I can survive and win the game.
5.0 Conclusion:
Enough complaining about ZvP in the late game. With this deathball style it should soon be evident that Zerg has just as many powerful options in the late game to bolster their standing army.
5.1 Acknowledgements (fancy word for shoutouts):
I give thanks...
To 4Kings for having faith in me as a pick up, and supporting me well ever since.
To NrGKvz and kiwiGotC for contributing, editing and supporting the creation of this guide.
To ExO, binski, Lost, Domino, Nizzy, Slurgi, Warden, Specialist, Rangirl, MyWa, and DreAm; my current and former teammates. The atmosphere of being in a great team is something I have been very lucky to experience.
To LgNTheoRy, vileDomorin, kiwiSiN, kiwiNerZhuL, kiwiHeavOnEarth, kiwiCaliber, vileDdoRo, vileHawk, xSixJemag, coLTriMaster, Polar, Whiplash, ValiditySAGA, tQWannabe, KawaiiRice, tGKangpo, QxGtheognis, GoSuPokebunny, NrGLuckyFool, NrGDeph, NrGsteve, Mantra, coLAntimage, OdiN, cjb and infinity; my current and former practice partners. They give me inspiration, motivation and they're the reason I could even begin to write something like this.
And finally to TeamLiquid. I've been a follower since Klazart brought me here in 2007, and the community has been irreplaceable to me ever since.
Please post your thoughts and experiences with this style in this thread, including any replays or questions you have about it. I'll try my best to answer questions and keep up to date. Oh and as this is my first guide, any feedback at all would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks again for reading and GL HF!
