EPTZvZ: The matchup that you never seem to get enough experience in. ChoJJa the master of ZvZ as of late. Known for his cowboy-style Zerg vs Terrans where he gets an enormous amount of lings, and a handful of ultras. His strength lies in micro and strategy, even though his macro is great at sometimes. He seems to always know how much his opponent has in ZvZ ie first game against IPXZerg in grand finals of Cyon MSL @ RoV where he hid his first 6 lings when he 9pooled only to make his move when speed was about to finish, then IPX has already made his expansion and lost alot of time having to cancel it halfway through. He likes to do the 9pool alot to keep the game microintensive all the way through. Sometimes he even opts to go 5pool, just to be unpredictable.
His trademark unit has to be scourges, as he's great at cloning them. He always makes them ZvZ, and in a first person VOD I saw of him against GoodFriend at IntoTheDarkness he killed something like 6-7 vessels with 12-14 scourges cloning them perfectly, at the same time as he was attacking. Quite awesome to see him do that from a first person view. He is known to choke alot though, especially against Terrans. He's also a master of 1 base in ZvP, and was considered the best ZvP player a few years ago due to his impressive winning percentage in that matchup. Right now ZvP is considered to be his 2nd strongest matchup after ZvZ.
Then there's YellOw who has slightly worse macro but better strategy than ChoJJa. He is known to be Boxers punching bag in their oldschool clashes a long time ago, and is also loved by the girls for his looks
Seems destined to never win a MSL/OSL title, always losing to a Terran in the final in close games 2-3(except vs Oov in Oovs first MSL title where he got creamed 0-3). He was considered to be the strongest ZvT player before Junwi got his stuff together, and later July/GoRush now IPXZerg. His biggest strength now is his strategy, and the ZvZ matchup. His micro was considered to be really good though and macro not that strong, hence his ZvT being better than his ZvP. He had a great ZvZ game vs GGPlay at 815 in the So1 Starleague half year ago, where they both made, queens, defilers, lurkers, hydras, lings and mutas. Basically every Zerg unit except guardians/ultras. He's known to be great with defilers. In fact in a replay a few years ago, he won a terran with 160 supply with his own 60 supply due to excellent defiler/lurk micro. YellOw always performs well in special events(invites) and won the Snickers all-star league and the Blizzcon event last year. He also seems to beat July every time they face each other. His nickname Stormy Zerg comes from his very good harass and control in small guerilla battles and also his fast push and general pressure against Terran. Personally I think his harass is great and is what making him still going strong.
ZvT: I want to mention July aka God of Fighting in this matchup because he's THE execution-Zerg. Even though he's godly in every matchup, I think his ZvT is a tiny bit stronger than his ZvP. His micro/macro is great, but most of all his insane muta-micro displayed against so many protosses, but also against terrans such as Oov in their Gillette semi-finals match at Namja Iyagi. His problem might be that he tends to be too aggressive, for example attacking even though chances on him winning the battle are very slim. He wants to use his very good micro hence he wants battles all the time. This doesnt mean he's not able to macro though. For example in a game against Iris[gm] in the current starleague groups, he steamrolled Iris with terrific macro on the map Rush Hour II. His win against same opponent on the map RoV in the quarters of EVER2 OSL also showed impressive macro vs terran.
I think lings are his trademark unit in addition to mutas. Those "julylings" seem to have speed even before it's researched due to their aggressive behaviour
Seems to have a jinx vs NaDa and YellOw. Considered the best current player in the world, due to his impressive accomplishments the past year. Only Zerg to have won a starleague twice, and the only zerg to win an OSL title(a title he has won twice too along with great players as Nada, Boxer, and GARIMTO) might get his third upcoming weekend.IPXZerg also known as Savior[gm] is one of the new Zergstars doing his breakthrough last year. Zergs seems to get one new star in the gang every year. HOT 2000, YellOw 2001, ChoJJa 2002,GoRush&July 2004, and IPXZerg in 2005. No new Zerg players have emerged as special thus far this year, but maybe we'll see a revolution of Mumyung! NOT!
Anyway back to IPX. He's a terrific ZvT player known for his 7 game winning streak against Oov, and to generally make big armies of gasexpensive units such as lurkers/guardians/defilers. I think his micro/macro is comparable to Julys. Slightly worse micro and slightly better macro. His muta-micro is also really good though. Notable for IPX is his massing of drones while he's muta-microing, spreading them out to the two expands he adds just before his muta-harass. While many other zergs swear to make all their expand-drones out of the expand hatchery, he uses all his three or four hatcherys to make drones at the same time. This allows him to have a great economy which kicks in right before the usual Terran push after Muta harass is coming out. His 2nd strongest MU is ZvP where he like July also seems to prefer Mutas in alot of games. His ZvZ hasnt really been tested enough, but I'd say it's pretty good taking 3 games from ChoJJa in their two bo5 series. He actually won ChoJJa in the winner bracket of the UZOO MSL.
ZvP: GoRush is just an excellent macro/strategy player, and this matchup really requires those skills. Actually this is a matchup you can win even though your micro/macro isnt great as long as your strategy is. For example Mondragon who is considered the best foreign ZvPer doesnt really have terrific micro/macro but plays so damn safe and smart that he's able to win very much. Just generally playing smart is what's needed most in this matchup, even though players like July can win on sheer micro or macro. A great example is July vs Pusans recent match on Rush Hour where July just made fast ranged hydras(cant remember if it was 3 or 2 hatch) and took out Pusans fastexpand-nexus. Very smart played.
GoRushs ZvP is most famous for his losses in the spectacular proleague matches against Nal_rA and Stork. Such rare games seem to be the only ones he lose in that matchup though, and I generally think he's at the same strategy level as Yellow, but since his macro is much better he really excells in this matchup. GoRushs ZvZ is also really really good, and has always been, so it's not like he doesnt have good micro either. Seemed to have a jinx vs Oov before he joined SKT1. He had some GREAT ZvT games against NaDa though both in IOPS OSL and YATGK MSL, and seemed to be the only Zerg able to take NaDa out at that time(July won NaDa in KT-KTF Semis though). He received his nickname Magician Zerg after those matches due to his ability to control very large amounts of units at the same time. After that his ZvT slumped badly though losing to Goodfriend and Xellos in EVER2 and then not qualifing for the following OSL. He's back now though
Finally there's H.O.T Forever or NeO)H.O.T486 as he went by in the old days. The very first zerg player that dominated the korean scene. Known for his amazing ability to flank terran-forces with his hydra/lurker. Rumours say TheMarine was once quoted saying "HOT only fight center" , meaning he never attacked before the terran went out in a flankable position. He competed in the unofficial world championship organized by GameQ. In this event he did quite well(I also think he got 4pooled by Maynard on Rivalry in that tournament too losing the game), however the event got canceled half way true due to lack of funds. H.O.T then went along to play our very own canadian X'Ds~Grrrrr... in the Hanaro Tooniverse Ongamenet Starleague. Losing 2-3. Since then he had to wait until 2002 to meet a terran called Sync in the final of NATE OSL. Among the best games I've seen of him are the classic one against NaDa from Gembc Starleague(I think) on Isles of Siren where he clones 8 or 9 groups of scourges into Nadas 12 BCs. Pimpest move in 2003. He also had a great game vs Nada on Bifrost in Panasonic Starleague I think, where he went 3 hatches before pool, because he predicted Nada would go fast academy. He then proceeded by going hydra only making a perfect concave/bow to welcome Nadas units when Nada entered the chokepoint. Nada got tanks too late because he went 3 rax thus got owned by the hydras. Really nice play that game that showed how good hydras can be ZvT if you use them correctly. His ZvP was considered his best though, but this was back before anyone used lurkers alot in that matchup, and it relied mostly on controling big groups of hydra while expanding over the map. A playstyle that is similar to HOTs might be Enoughs zerg. Watch Enoughs ZvP 9 vs 6 vs Zeus to get the feeling on how good him and HOTs hydra control were. His trademark unit is obviously the hydras
Also likes to mass lings early game ZvP. His ZvZ was decent not nearly as amazing as his ZvP/ZvT though. Worth to mention his jinx vs Elky. He lost a showmatch badly like 3-0 when Elky came to Korea. Also HOT qualified for WCG 2003, but didnt make a big impact losing to several foreigners including Hellghost iirc. Probably the most famous top korean known for losing against foreigners.That's it! Post your thoughts as well please. Do some evaluation on your own. There's bound to be someone who disagree with me
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