[G] GM zerg from Complexity academy ZvP guide

There are a number of openings you can use in certain situations vs protoss.
These openings require you to send out 2 drones out if he is camping your natural with his probe, one to your natural and one to your 3rd build your hatchery at whichever base isnt blocked, if you build your 2nd base at your 3rd make sure to send your 2nd ovy from the natural to your 3rd to prevent cannon rush. If he starts making pylons at the 3rd to cannon rush it make 4 lings before queen and it should time out fast enough to stop the cannon rush. If it doesnt seem like it will make it in time wait for 1 cannon to come up and cancel the hatch and just take your natural. (he invests a lot more in cannoning + pylon than you do canceling hatch and rebuilding it)

My prefered opening: 9ovy - 15p - 16 hatch - 16ovy - 16queen - 4lings - 21ovy - queue 2nd queen - (start 3rd queen when natural pops) drone to 36 - ovy - 3rd hatch - drone to 40 - double gass - ovy on 42.
Queen inject rotation - first queen injects main then walks to your 2nd base, 2nd queen that pops out of main stays in main to inject for rest of game - 3rd queen that pops out of natural lays 2 creep tumors then walks to the 3rd and injects it for the rest of the game.

This build takes the 3rd a lot slower but it ends up working out a lot better eco wise because the fast 3rd doesnt actually give you an economic boost, you get more drones out faster with the slower 3rd and since youre not going to be saturated on 2 base by the time the 3rd is done anyways youre not losing mining time. This build also lets all timings be about 10s faster than normal builds which is extremly good for something like a roach max timing. With this build you should be taking gass at about 5:45-5:50 which is 40-44 supply which with the fast 3rd build would be at 6:00. This build is also very safe vs the MC allin (7gates 1 gass) if you throw down your roach warren right when you throw down double gass, you will have a much easier time defending vs the push. This opening also alows your 3rd queen that you start at your natural right when it pops to lay down 2 creep tumors letting you push out your creep helping you with any 2 base timings that the toss might be hitting you with.

Fast 3rd build: 9ovy - 15p - 16 hatch - 16ovy - 16queen - 4lings -queue 2nd queen - drone to 25 - throw down 3rd base (make sure drone arrives right when you hit 300min) - 24ovy - 30ovy - 34 queen - double gass at 44 - 42ovy
Queen inject rotation: 1st queen injects main then walks to 2nd base, 2nd queen pops stays in main rest of game to inject main hatchery. 1st queen injects natural one time then walks to 3rd (by the time the inject pops from your 2nd base your 3rd queen will spawn at the same time and be ready to inject that base and your 2nd queen can inject your 3rd so you dont miss any inject timing).

I beleive that this build is worse eco wise than the first build because you will get less drones and dont benefit from having the hatch up super quickly. That being said some people feel a lot more comfy taking their 3rd a lot quicker so it can simply be a preferance. This build will be able to stop allins but it is slightly harder to do, the only benefit i see from this is they opened gateway first into taking their natural and pumped out 3-5 zealots and sent them to your 3rd which you would have creep and a queen there already to be able to defend with slow lings while the slower 3rd you would have to cancel it.

This doesn't change in either game you have to scout and be reactive with these timings. When you scout the toss with your overlord you have to position it at their natural and check for their additional gass timings, If toss has not taken their 3rd or 4th gass by 6min you have to throw down your roach warren and delay your evo chamber, if they have taken their 3rd + 4th gass you can delay your warren and evo chamber to 7min ingame time. If only a 3rd gass is taken throw down evo chamber and roach warren at around the 6:30 mark.

Take your 3rd gass when you start speed
Take your 4th gass when you start lair
your 5th and 6th gass SHOULDN't be taken until after you have established that the protoss is taking a 3rd base. This is because any 2 base timing has to be dealt with roach + ling, if you take your 5th+6th gass too early your mineral / gass deposit will be uneven and you will end up not having enough roaches because you will be floating 600 gass and have 0 minerals. These gass are only to be taken if you plan to go higher in tech and invest in late game play, if you plan on going for the roach max then you should stay on 4 gass because that is all that is needed to support mass roach + lings.

You have to build your macro hatch based upon drone count, assuming that you only built the 4 lings and 3 queens you should be dropping the macro hatch at around 60-70 supply which is 52-62 drones, if you are bad with injects then drop a macro hatch each time you hit 1000minerals. Make sure that youre doing this by drone count and not supply if you have had to make units to defend vs an allin from the protoss.

First overlord flys to the natural of the toss, if a 4 player map like antiga fly your overlord to the closest enemy natural to your main base. 2nd overlord goes over your natural and 3rd overlord goes to their 3rd base. Make sure to always position your overlords close to dead space or ledges so that if he send a stalker over you can move your overlord and prevent it from dying. After the first 3 overlords you should send overlords over ledges that have a possibility of a probe building a pylon or hiding, always keep your overlords safe and dont spread out too many incase they go pheonix.

Your first overlord goes to the protoss natural to see if it is a forge first or a nexus first or gateway first.
Gateway first into nexus: With this opening you should send your overlord to his main and see which gass he took, if the gass that is left empty that he did not take has good air space behind it put your overlord behind it and check for his 2nd gass timing. When you see this opening from the protoss you have to change your gass timing and 3rd timing, you will double gass at 32 for faster ling speed and throw down your roach warren at around 40 supply. The benefit protoss gets from going gate first is the speed of the first gateway timing but if you manage to crush it then he is behind because if you crush a toss push you can freedrone up to fully saturated on 3 base and then do a max roach timing on 4gass.

Gateway + cyber into nexus: This opening has 2 transitions, an allin from 1 base and taking their nexus, when you see that they are putting down their cyber before nexus stick your overlord over their natural and see if theyre throwing down a nexus. If they do not throw down a nexus by 5min then it is an allin (use your lings to sit outside his base after searching for the probe) if the toss does not build a sentry but instead goes for a stalker 2nd throw down the 1st spine at your natural and wait to see if he makes a sentry as his 3rd unit or throws down his nexus. When youre going vs this you need to throw down a evo chamber at 6 min if he does not take his natural in case of DTs. If he is 4 gating you the key is to throw down mass spines and defend with spine ling queen untill your speed finishes (single gass as soon as you find out that he is allining and not taking his nexus). If he throws down his nexus then treat it the same way you do gateway into nexus.

Nexus first + Forge first: When you scout that he went forge first or nexus first send your overlord straight into their main and then sit it there untill you see his gass timing, if he takes 1 gass instead of 2 sit it there for another 10s, if he doesnt take his gass move your overlord to the natural if he is still on 1 gass he is going the gateway allin and you need to make a roach warren asap, if you opened with the first build listed then you should take double gass at 36 supply just in case and a roach warren at the same time, get speed as soon as you get 100 gass and start making lings, try to deny his forward pylon and then put all gass into roach and all minerals into lings. This push will be held off if you keep your money low and constantly larva inject. If he takes both gass when you scout his main then move to his natural and sit over his gasses. 4 gasses means immortall allin on 2 base or a fast 3rd, 3 gasses means blink stalker allin / dt / air so put down a spore at important locations and make sure youre active with your lings to see if he is going to move out with his units. If a protoss is on 2 gass and is doing pressure with 1 stalker and mass zealot there is a possibility of him going DTs from 2 gass, make roachs to defend vs the zealots and throw down spores at all your bases to make sure you dont die.

Roach/ling max: If the toss is still on 2 base you should do the roach ling max make a retention of roachs (about 30-40) then mass speedlings, this allows you to put down a tech like muta or infestor while keeping them trapped on 2 base (this is something you do when you beat a 2 base allin and the toss wont leave) This requires you to be constant with your injects and not lose your roachs and constantly replace your lings. If he took a fast 3rd you can roach ling max and kill the toss, using the 1st or 2nd build it can lead into a roach max (you should be at or near 200/200 by 11min if youre not at that supply at this time then youre either messing up the build or missing injects.

Muta: If the toss is taking a fast 3rd you can throw down your 5+6th gass and take your 4th super quick and throw down double spire when lair pops, when you saturate 3 base start making waves of lings to get map control, be active with these lings and if the toss is turtling in his base you can make a wave of 10-15 drones to your 4th and take 7+8th gass. Double up your mutas and melee + ground armor and start massing mutas. For this style to work you have to not miss injects and be very active on the map with mutas and lings and to trade as much as possible, when you have a chance to jump on his sentrys with lings + mutas try to kill them all off, at this point it is your tell to start making banelings because he will not have enough gass to constantly make stalkers + replace sentry + tech to templar. This build requires you to hit and kill them in a window of time if youre too inactive with this the toss will power on 3 base and simply over run you.

Drops: Start drop + ovy speed as soon as you hit lair and throw down your 4th base + all gass on 3 base as well as an infestation pit (double evo for melee + ground armor and baneling nest) make about 20-30 roachs and then start making mass speedling. You should be about 160 supply by the time drops is finished time it out so all your units and ovys meet outside his main base and load them all up. Fly an empty ovy in first to check if he has stalkers there, if he does not then drop into his main and focus down anything you can; nexus, probes, tech, pylons. If you cant drop his main then continue to make lings and then make a mass amount of banelings and attack any area with roach ling + bane drop. Youre doing this all while transitioning into infestors, making nothing but lings for a 1-2min means you will pool up 1000+ gass and you can make a buttload of infestors right after. Your 2nd push will be infestors + mass lings and any roaches you maintained at his 3rd base to continue to apply pressure while you tech into hive. If you manage to do alot of damage make an ultralisk cavern and go ultra ling bane infestors and crush him as he trys to take his 4th, other wise start broodlord tech and taking bases around the map.

Turtle: This is my least favorite style, when you spine up and make mass infestor + spine crawler while teching into hive for brood lords. My concept for any matchup is if you make units you have to be active with them because otherwise its money that could of been saved up and used later on for something more usefull. But some toss dont know how to react to this style so you can get a mass amount of broodlord infestor and then do a 200/200 timing and fight the toss army straight up
Roach hydra corruptor: I dont recommend doing this style as it requires you to be 100% of the time active on the map with your units constantly picking engagements and not missing injects. The key to this style is having your roach as buffer - 10 corruptors and about 10-15 hydras, you constantly have to replenish the number of units you lose (hydra corruptor) to maintain that count the whole entire time and constantly pick fights to pick off collosus/stalker and waste FF energy.

Proxy gateways: dont throw down your 2nd base, as soon as your pool pops make a spine in your mineral line, the more the better. Make mass lings and a queen, you will have to use drones to fight the zealots along with your lings and it comes down to micro. If you constantly have problems with it then you need to scout with a drone at 10 supply the areas where a proxy gates will most likely be built

Cannon rush: when you go to drop your natural down you should take a drone to patrol at the ramp to prevent the 3 pylon block. If he manages to get the 3 pylon block down take your gass right away and start a roach warren, start making mass roachs push down your ramp and kill off the cannons, take your natural and send your roachs over to his natural (ignore pylons that dont need to be killed right then) and make a wave of lings (4 lings) to kill the remaining pylons. The investment he made into making the pylongs + cannon and the extra cannons he has to make to make sure you dont kill him with the roachs actually evens out the game, play the game reactive from that point on using what i wrote in this guide and you should be fine. These games do turn gimicky and its not 100% possible to give you every situation so just try to scout him as much as possible and always focus on making drones at every point that you can.