EPTHey there, this is Chill from Team Liquid, and this is a Zerg Strategic commentary. This is going to be a Zerg vs Protoss on Python.
A funny thing happens in Starcraft after about three months. Certain things that used to work, don't work anymore, and this is an example of that (or at least my commentaries are). If you go back and watch the other Zerg vs Protoss commentaries I've recorded, you'll find they're quite a bit out of date. I believe they were advocating 4 hatch evolution chamber +1 into Lair and that really does not work anymore. It's just an indicator that the game is always evolving.
So, I still you can get something from those commentaries if you go back and watch them. I mean, they're not useless anymore. Some themes and mechanics can still work in those, but, this is gunna be revamped ah... this is what I call my "Easy Mode" build, because I think it's the easiest way for Zerg to beat kind of a lesser or similar leveled Protoss. Somewhere around the D+ C- C level.
So again, this is on Python. I'm scouting. He sent his Probe out to match my Overlord. So at this point you have the option, if you were going to 9 pool, you have the option not to 9 pool. Let's look at the two builds you'll probably be doing: either 9 pool or 12 hatch. I'm going to omit the overpool-speed, just for the purpose of this discussion.
So, why would you 9 pool? It's safer, and if he puts down a blind 12-13 Nexus, you win outright. So, it's a safer build. Why would you 12 hatch? Well, if he hasn't scouted and he puts down a Forge, then you get that much of an advantage from it just putting down the Hatchery. So, given that I always tend to favor safe play, I'm gunna put down a 9 pool. Pretty much always, I use a 9 pool. And then I have the option here, when I see he's at this base, to continue with my 9 pool or not go with it. He's gunna Probe scout me anyways, so going with a 12 hatch is probably not going to give me that much of an advantage. Plus I'm gunna want my first three Hatcheries at different bases. So I'm gunna go with a 9 pool anyway. I did also have the option here to only make 2 Zerglings and 2 Drones to kind of fake like I was going to move out with 6 Zerglings, force the cannons, and get extra Drones. I chose not to do that in this, just to kill his scouting Probe and just show some standard play. It's something you may want to take a look at.
So now right away, at about 13 or 14, I'm gunna send another Drone to the top left expansion to put my third hatchery there, cuz I want to get the first three Hatcheries up.
So, it's a 9 pool, and I couldn't tell you the timing. I'm gunna guess it's a 12 hatch. So 9 pool, 6 Zerglings, 12 hatch, and 13 or 14 hatch goes down at the next base, and then all Drones. You're going to go up to 18 when you make your 4th Hatchery. And just use your Zerglings to control Probe scouting. You don't want him to get free scouting. Just keep your Zerglings up front. When you see him running, try to surround those Probes.
Now, I've got my Overlord... the Overlord at his natural is going to be looking at the Forge, gunna be looking at the Gateways, and try to get a sense of what build he's doing. Now I'm sending 3 Drones here, that's the usual number I maynard after a 9 pool. Something I ment to mention... I'll mention it next commentary. Try to put your Drones on the minerals that mine quicker. I mean, yeah, I don't even want to get into it because I'll bring it up next commentary.
So, the 18, the Hatchery goes down. Put it somewhere where it does some good, like blocking the Natural. I'll get back to the build order after this. I'm trying to block my ramp here, trying to be cute. Unfortunately, I misplaced it and you can see his Probe's gunna walk right by. Some failed cuteness right there. Now he gets free scouting. Really, that should not have happened, my Zerglings should've been in position to block that. I noticed it just a second too late and I couldn't catch up with the Zerglings.
So, you put the 18 Hatchery, the 4th Hatchery on 18, somewhere where it does some good. It's gunna block a runby, give you places to put Sunken Colonies, something like that. Sending in this Overlord now to check for +1. Since I see +1 isn't started, I'm gunna assume it's gunna be some sort of Bisu opening, or I guess a Stargate Dark Templar opening (which could go into Bisu build or could go in to an array of other builds).
So, after the 18 Hatchery, just to get back on the build here, you want to get an Overlord and an Extractor in some order. Sometimes I do Extractor Drone Overlord, sometimes Overlord Extractor Drone. It doesn't really make too much of a difference to me at least. And then the first 100 gas goes to Lair, now I'm making all Drones because he's given me no reason not to. And I can see from the Stargate in his main base that it's indeed going to be a Corsair opening. +1 still not started. So, I'm getting the Overlords out of there, because the Corsair is gunna be out soon and I'm only going to be dealing with this with Hydralisks. So, you're gunna lose the main Overlord, so don't really worry about that too much. I think in this game I actually lost it to a Dragoon. Really not that big a deal, but get the one at the natural out of there. Put it in a strange place where he might not find it for a little bit, just so you can get that extra supply out of it while it's still alive.
It takes a little bit of experience to know when to put down the Hydralisk Den. You do it relative to his Stargate timing. And you just want it to finish so your Hydras are coming right when his first Corsair is out. So, that's what I'm aiming for here.
The Lair is almost done. Now, there's a few different variants here. You can get a very quick Spire which is very strong against a Bisu build where there's many Corsairs. You can supplement that with a later Overlord speed. That works really well against Bisu. But, you can also delay the Spire and go for +1. I think that's a safer route if your micro isn't as good. I think the Evolution Chamber and +1 Carapace is a better build, but if you're a little higher level and want to experiment with different variants, really give the quick Spire- sometimes I'm even getting Spire before Lurker tech. So give that a roll. In this variant, I went Evolution Chamber, then I believe I went Lurker tech, and then +1, and then I'm going to get a Spire, and then Overlord speed.
When you're doing this variant, it's very important not to lose the Overlords at your natural because you'll have a late Overlord speed. So I want to make sure I have enough Hydralisks there and I'm constantly worrying, thinking 'should I put down a Creep Colony yet'. So, you've really got to pay attention there cuz, those two overlords, the game hinges on them.
So, I'm making an assumption here that he hasn't made more than 1 Corsair just because simply I haven't seen them. It would be devastating if was building Corsairs in his main. Like he had 5 or 6 now and moved out with 2 Dark Templar and 6 Corsairs. That would basically be a game ender, but, typically you're gunna see people harassing with the Corsairs. So I think it's a safe assumption if you haven't seen any Corsairs that he's not going to be stockpiling them in his main.
So, given that I haven't seen too much Corsair harassment, I think this is just a build where he's got 1 Dark Templar out to keep me honest (from taking a 4th base), and then he's gunna get quick High Templar and possibly Dragoons. If it's Dragoons, I like calling it the NonY build because the first time I ever saw it was in the TSL, but I'm sure it's been done to death. But, that's the name I've given it, and that's typically how you hail it, well a few people who are familiar with the TSL refer to it.
So now, Lurker tech is finished, Zergling speed should... I think I actually missed it, but it's not too big a deal, he's not gunna be moving out for a while here. So you just want to get all your tech going at this point. Have 1 or 2 Lurkers in case he's moving in with a few Zealots. That'll force him back. Zerglings for the rest. At this point you're not going to be making too many more Drones. You're getting your army ready cuz this is gunna be the time when he's about ready to move out. And of course he doesn't have observers yet so he can't really do much, yet. So, just use these Lurkers to keep him back while you just prepare everything.
When that 5th Hatchery goes down, it's hard to say. Suffice it to say, when you have enough minerals. And then, you're going to have to play it by ear if you want to go towards Hive, or if you want to add another evolution chamber and begin melee. You can see how late this Overlord speed is. It's just what happens when you're doing this style of build. As soon as the Overlord speed is finished, try not to lose those Overlords, but get them in positions where they're gunna look for drops and look for expansions. I've done a very poor job looking for expansions. I believe he's got 6 o'clock up very soon.
So now, nothing's really going on at this point. I'm scouting around because I've lost his army. You can see I have really bad scouting right now. You should really have an Overlord, now that the Corsair's dealt with, one over his cliff and a Zergling in front of his base at all times, just to keep track of his army. You can see, at least I've got these Zerglings moving around, cuz I want to be able to see where his army's going. The nightmare for Zerg is when the army just shows up at your third base and don't have anything there; you had no idea it was coming. So, that's why these Overlords are spread around looking for drops.
And there you go: he's taking this base down here at 6 o'clock. And this, a *disaster* against my easy mode build, and you'll see exactly why. If you're a really strong Protoss player you can pull this off. If you're not, I'm really going to advise you to stay on 2 bases much longer than this player does when a Zerg is staying on 3 bases. Because, you're gunna see what happens and this is typical of anyone who's around similar level to you. It's gunna be a very- it's very difficult for them to compete in these situations. I mean, if you're out classed, then you'll probably, you know, you're going to lose anyways, they can do whatever they want. But, if it's similar skill level, something like this is gunna happen.
So, the first thing I'm going to do to respond is take a 4th base, obviously. Getting all my tech ready, and just getting my Lurkers grouped up. Getting all my hotkeys ready cuz I know he's probably got observers coming shortly, and he's looking to attack. So, I want to have everything ready to flank, cuz you can see I'm going to flank from top-left.
So now, the goal here is let the Lurkers live, let the Zerglings take the damage. He gets some really nice storms here which I should've done better dodge, but it's not too much of a deal because he's gunna run in and just get skewered up by my Lurkers.
So what you want Protoss to do, I mean, if he fell back here he would be quite a bit ahead, in my mind at least. What happens is he gets greedy; he engages and that's when the flank comes. So unborrow the Lurkers- it's a little difficult to do if you have burrowed and unburrowed Lurkers but you've really got to do it. Unburrow the Lurkers, bring them in to flank, and then unborrow your main Lurkers. Bring in all your army and just send it A-moving, piling towards his natural. If you get control of his natural choke, the game is over, and you'll see exactly why. And this is so simple once you get in this position. If someone else was in this position, anyone really, playing against C C+ level player, the game is pretty much called at this point.
So what you want to do is get your entire army in. Get the Lurkers burrowed; don't worry about where they burrow at this point. Just keep Zerglings and try to target High Templar up at the front, and that's going to keep him from Psi Storming a bunch of your Lurkers. Get everything moving. And now it's time, now there's a little lull in the action. I've got my macro dealt with. I've got the Lurkers spreading so they're each a storm apart, forming a concave.
What you do is take a bunch of your Overlords and group them together with Scourge. I use the hotkey 4. So 4 is all my Overlords at his natural and all my Scourge, grouped together, and you'll see why this is pretty effective. And now, I'm not even going to worry about his 6 o'clock base because I know, all his units are coming out of his main. If I keep him contained, I have map control, I can do whatever I want, I'll take care of that 6 o'clock base later. If you're a more aggressive player, you might want to deal with it now, but this is the passive, unbelievably safe style I play. So I'm always going to have my Lurkers burrow to storm away. I'm gunna have like 12 Zerglings grouped on 1, just so I can run them in, target anything, and then run them out quickly cuz they're grouped on 1 (and the Overlords' on 4). So you send the group 4 to attack an Observer, then just clone a Scourge away, and then what you want to do is clone all but 1 Overlord away, so the end result should be all your Scourge are cloned to different Observers and you only 1 Overlord going in, cuz you don't want all of your Overlords dieing to Dragoon fire or something like that. It's super effective and it's unbelievable hard for Protoss to deal with, and if you want to supplement this, while you're sending that in (clone to kill the Observers), send in the group at 1 (the Zerglings) which will draw all his fire. All his Observers are going to go down. That's why it's called the easy mode, because once you get in this situation, which happens more often than not, unless Protoss is comfortable in these situations, it's just really simple to win.
How do you follow up? Continue with your upgrades, don't over expand. You want to make a lot of units here to keep this contain strong. Always have enough Scourge and move towards Ultralisks. And the way you're gunna finish the game typically is gunna be either with Defilers, so you'll attack his- inevitably if you've got in this situation, he's gunna have a third base somewhere. And it's gunna be heavily blocked off with cannons, or Templar, Reavers, something. So you're either gunna end the game with Defilers, just giving up your contain basically to trade your contain for his third base, or you're gunna end it with drop.
Drop is the easier route, so that's what I'm doing here. Loading up 12 Zerglings, and what I've done here is I've told them to move to the center of the map, then hold shift, click U, and left clicked his main, so I've queued up that Overlord is gunna automatically move to the middle of the map, then unload in his main. So I don't even need to watch that drop. The reason I'm going through this is because it just frees you up to macro, doing little moves like this (having your Scourge hotkeyed). All these things are freeing up opportunities for you to Macro. The reason I can't just drop straight in his base is because I'd fly through the natural and he had a bunch of cannons. So now I can see he's got 3 cannons in his main. Typically Protosses wouldnt've had that, but I mean all that means is that the next drop has to have a few Ultralisks in it and that's gunna be a game ender.
So, the game is coming to a close. I think it's a pretty bad game, but it's a pretty good example of the things you need to pay attention when you're doing this. So, the things to look at in the opening is make sure you understand what his build is. Is he doing a +1 Zealot rush? Is he doing a true Bisu build? Or is he doing a single Corsair scout into High Templar? And they all have different ways to be responded to. Once you realize that, you need to have good timing on your Lurker tech, have enough Zerglings while making the rest pure Drones to stay alive in the early game. And then in the mid game, you want to react to what he's doing. If he's doing that sort of NonY build where there's a lot of Dragoons and High Templar, you can't play the same way here. You're gunna have to set up a better flank and possibly work in Hydralisks. If he has taken that third base, you want to control his choke as soon as possible. I mean, it happened nicely here where he- *ahem* excuse me- he let me... he basically handed it to me. Sometimes you're gunna have to take it from him, and I mean it's pretty easy; you can push in with Lurkers once you have the Spire out to Scourge his Observers. Then once you get to the choke, make mostly all attacking units. I like to only make the Drones from the Hatcheries at that base.
So, this drop is really gunna finish the game here. He's broken through the contain almost completely, but it doesn't even matter at this point because, as I said, trading my contain for one of his bases is really a decent trade at this point in the game.
So, I really hope you can put this easy mode build into practice. I think it works well at these levels of play, and there's gunna be a second commentary to give you another variant on ZvP.
