Zerg Art ~

Your Road to a Better Future; Zerg Art 101

If Protoss is at the far left end of a spectrum, then Zerg is at the far right; Terran can be loosely generalized as being in the middle. The Zerg race is based solely on massing large amounts of units with high mobility in a short time and having the ability to adapt to the needs of situations easily with variations of its units. While massing units, Zerg needs to be able to keep control of a game through micromanagement (the way the units are controlled) of those units in order to expand. Without the expansions, the main ideas of the race that I defined cannot be fulfilled.

In the past, the “old school” way of carrying out the idea of expanding with Zerg worked like this:
Vs. Terran fast expand and mass a pre-planned unit. Win the game off of that one expansion.

Vs. Protoss fast expand and mass a pre-planned unit. Win the game off of that one expansion.

There’s a very definite reason why Zerg’s “old school” is old school. It sucks. It’s not practical anymore to have predefined ideas and unit mixtures for a whole game like it used to be when Battle.net took care of Broodwar’s server’s ladder system and the original GameI worked.

Starcraft and Broodwar have been popular games since 1998, and in the years since then the games have been pushed to their boundaries. While build orders are set in stone, the amount of ways to branch off of basic build order openings are almost limitless. With a functional brain up above, the sky is the limit. Likewise, your opponent can abide by the same principal. This leaves us with a set of worries that need counters. Aside from map hackers, we can no longer say, “Scouting? What the hell! Who cares about scouting? Mass archon, baby!” We must scout now and counter based on what units apply to the situation; adaptation throughout the game is almost inevitable, especially with Zerg.

Zerg is special when it comes to adaptation. Unlike Protoss and Terran, Zerg has many different types of units for all of the many types of situations that can be thrown at it. Protoss and Terran just have choices of how they can pressure Zerg with the same units, whereas Zerg has the choice of which units and technology it can use to counter the opening move Protoss or Terran has planned against it. With that comes this scare for some; “How do I know that I can handle learning all of the possibilities, and how can I learn to use all of the openings I have at my fingertips?”

Once you get the hang of it, it’s too easy! Work each one by one with credible build orders you pick up as you play the game. Every build order is special in that it can counter some situations, but it is weak in other situations. However, there is one build order with Zerg that stands out as being standard, thus being the one you should master first and foremost: 12 hatch. “Well, what the shit is 12 hatch?”
12 hatch refers to the number of drones you have when you lay down your first hatchery. The general build order for 12 hatch follows like this:

-Build 9 drones + send beginning overlord out to scout for opponent at the closest base

-Build an overlord after these 9 drones and scout for your opponent with one of the drones

-Morph the two larvae after your overlord completes into drones, then morph the larvae that pops out of the hatchery soon after you start up those two drones

-Morph another hatchery when minerals permit, but do not exceed 12 drones

-Stay at 11 drones and morph a spawning pool as soon as the drones gather 200 minerals

This is where the road splits depending on which race you are playing against.

If you are playing against Zerg or Protoss:

• Make sure the hatchery is built right next to your opening hatchery as closely as possible to the minerals.

• Replace the drones until you get to 12 supply again, and then lay an extractor with the next 50 minerals.

• Replace one more drone so you are back to 12 supply again, then save larvae until the spawning pool finishes so you will get 8 zerglings. Build one overlord (should be on 16/18 ), and 2 more larvae worth of zerglings so you will be at 18/18 supply with an overlord completing.

And here is another split;

Against Protoss;

• Mine only enough gas for the upgrade for zerglings to get speed, you will have 104 gas if you do this correctly (every drone after the drone that collects the ‘80’ mark of gas needs to be pulled off after it gives its gas to the hatchery)

Against Zerg;

• Keep the gas rolling in, and instead of getting zergling speed, upgrade one hatchery to lair, then with the next 100 gas upgrade zergling speed.

Against Terran;

• Remember the hatchery that is supposed to be built on 12? Send it to your expanse below your ramp and morph it there. There is a special instance to this referred to below.

• Just as you did against Zerg and Protoss, get 12 drones again, take the gas and replace that drone.

• Depending on what the drone found, you might either make drones or zerglings after this; if he is bunker rushing your expansion, send 4 to 6 drones to mess it up and create zerglings. If he is taking his gas after his first marine or he’s not looking aggressive early on, just build drones and get a pair of zerglings to keep an eye on your opponent’s choke point (area outside of the expansion node, between the cliffs and away from the ramp) and expansion area.

• There is one instance that will change this opening. If you are at the 12 o’clock position, you must make your 12 hatchery at your choke point so you can guard your ramp and your expansion with sunken colonies. Get the pool on 11, and then, instead of getting your gas on 12, get 13 drones, and make a hatchery at the expansion. Around 14 to 16, take one gas. Start the 2nd gas ONLY after you start your tech after the lair finishes (be it den, spire or both) for you will need to power mineral-drones in case they attack your choke point area (the three hatcheries increases the mineral income, and it leads to the proper income to allow for an affordable sunken colony defense at the choke point hatchery).

These styles of this build order open into middle game situations very nicely because of the relatively strong backbone of an economy. Without a good economy you cannot expand very well, thus disabling your ability to mass units. Without the ability to mass units you give your opponent the ability to take the offensive. That means you are stuck inside of your base behind some sort of defense sucking on your thumb wondering, “What now?” That is the worst predicament you can be in; this build order avoids that.

On the topic of economy, Zerg’s economy is the most unique. While Protoss and Terran must always keep producing more and more peons, Zerg works with little more than one peon per mineral patch. The juice of Zerg resides in the amount of gas they can rake in, thus why it is important to start a game against a Terran with the ability to take your second gas node quickly; however, that does NOT mean to take your secured natural expanse's gas right off of the bat. Two rules of thumb are:

• You can play a 2 hatch style, which is loads of gas; it focuses on unit quality and player intelligence more than it does on massive army power to win over / slow an opponent. This style is when you take your 2nd gas not long after you start off your lair upgrade. With this, you can use a strong unit combination that is extremely popular; mutalisk / lurker (with overlord drop and speed upgrade researched).
• The alternative choice is to get a third hatchery started before you take your natural's gas. after the third hatchery is started, you throw a gas up. This style gives you less gas, but stronger military power for a straight-forward gameplay. You can still harass with mutalisks, but lurkers must wait until you get a strong harassment ability over the terran with a minimum of 7 mutalisks (7 is the magic "one hit kill" number for scvs; 7 mutalisks' attacks = 1 dead scv). While harassing, you can expand. You also change your tech unit over to lurker. It's important to keep as many mutalisks alive as possible so you can use a deadly combination later on to beat up your opponent's army (which will undoubtedly come out to kill your alternate-base expanse); muta/ling/lurker. This is choice is one I favor.

Lair tech units are what Z v P and Z v T is based around mid-game. Lurkers can be used for containing when paired with scourge and speed-upgraded overlords; simultaneously one can harass with mutalisks against their opponent to make them fearful and sometimes slow them down. Mutalisks also give you a bird’s eye view of what your opponent is up to unit-wise so you can counter them accordingly.

Upgrades are so crucially important with Zerg for as one’s opponent upgrades, Zerg units that are left without upgrades become paper ripe for the shredding. Also, they set grounds for later unit mixtures against ground-based Protoss and Terran. With upgrades, Ultralisks can dominate with five points into their armor (that’s five less hit points they take for each blow from any splatter damage or direct damage). On top of this, attack upgrades are equally crucial.

For example:
In Z v T, a Terran with one point into armor will have marines that can soak a max of three attacks from a lurker until they die. That’s drastic when one considers that without the armor upgrade, the marine would die in two successful attacks. So, with every one-to-one upgrade to range attack, the Terran’s armor upgrade becomes void and the marines will die in two hits.
And, as another example, about the armor upgrade for Zerg:
In Z v P, a Protoss with one upgrade into attack will have zealots that can deal eighteen damage per attack, thus making zerglings without any armor points die to two attacks from zealots instead than three. Just one point into armor nulls a Protoss’s ability to kill zerglings in those two hits from an upgraded zealot.

On a grand scale about attack upgrades for Zerg, one can safely assume that with more upgrades to attack, it either nulls the opponent’s upgrades to armor or it decreases the amounts of attacks that it takes to kill a unit. The relative attack ratios for all of this can be found on BratTsunami’s old Geocities strategy guide (www.geocities.com/brattsunami; you may have to Google it because the link won’t open by address occasionally). It has a battle calculator on it that determines ratios of hits a unit would take from another specific unit (it’s Zerg-based). He also has an explanation on the math behind units, and has the relative amounts of hits it takes for hydralisk vs. zealot, zergling vs. zealot, hits it would take to attack a plagued zealot and even the percent decrease in attacks a unit would have to endure to break down a plagued enemy. It is very extensive; since I am not a mathematician, I am not going to find the equations when another already has.

Addressing when to research the early/mid-game upgrades is very necessary. Many people are left in the dark about when to upgrade until they have enough experience to have intuition on when to use and abuse the evolution chamber(s).

Generally, attack/defense upgrades always come after tech. This means that you should have your mutalisks and zerglings, lurkers and zerglings, hydras and lurkers, mutalisks and lurkers, mutalisks lings and lurkers, etc. up and active before you have your upgrades going. At least one evolution chamber with the carapace upgrade should be up and running by the time you have an alternate-base expanse morphing/already completed. Carapace is always needed, but upgrading melee/range attacks is relative to the units you're using. If you're looking to end up using mass ling/ultra, and you're using muta/ling or lurk/ling for the time being, you should upgrade melee attack. If you're using lurker/hydra, you should upgrade range attack. If you're using mass ling/hydra => lurk containment with ling/dra backing it, you can make three evolution chambers and upgrade range/melee/carapace at the same time; if you do this, make sure you have your mineral-only (third expanse area on LT for any given base) secured.

Overlord upgrades are an exception to the rule I stated for attack/defense upgrades. If you are going for a build that is partial to drop harassment, you should research overlord upgrades as soon as your lair finishes. Versus Terran, get drop first, speed second; this counters that extremely early cliff abuse that terran may pull. Versus Protoss, get speed first, drop second. This gives you an edge on corsair => dt users who like to expand quickly after getting a corsair, then rely on DT to secure the expanse until high templar with storm come out. It also sets you up for a strong drop-style vs Protoss late game!

Now, focusing more into viable mid-game strategies and thoughts:

Vs. Protoss:
After you secure the opening for speed zerglings, you need to see what the Protoss player is up to. If he is going double gate zealots, you need to counter his zealots for as long as he is creating them. You must also keep an eye over his nexus area to see if he takes his gas with an assimilator. Once the Protoss take their gas after double gating, it means that they are easing pressure off of you so rather than creating lings to counter the zealots, you can create drones. While in the midst of scouting to see what they are doing and creating zerglings or drones, you must expand around eighteen supply. The minerals will sky-rocket to around 300 at that supply, so it’s the wisest choice to pursue since the more gas you have over the Protoss, the better the position you are in. As you begin to pump more drones, put three drones back onto your main base’s extractor.

When you play against double gate, be mindful not to let your eyes off of your own ramp when they get a zealot in your base and harass your drones; they will try to block your ramp. If they successfully block off your ramp, get some minerals in sight for what is called “drone drilling.” Get three drones, mass your lings above the ramp, and then tell the drones to mine on minerals that are outside of your base. Peons on gather-mode will pass through all other units, so the drones will pass through the zealots. You want to tell them to stop as soon as they are within the enemy’s zealots while you send the zerglings at the same time; this will cause the zealots to be pushed around and the zerglings will not get damaged or will receive very little damage. There will also be more area for the zerglings to surround zealots, thus the sooner dead zealots will come! Expand right after, and head towards your opponent's base to see if you can possibly break their ramp for an easy win afterwards.

If you find that the Protoss player is single gating and has their gas taken, this means they are teching. Assume that there is almost no pressure because they are left without offensive power. You can try to go all-or-nothing and break their ramp with drone drill + ling, or you can play it safe and mass drones, expand and start gathering gas once again in your main base much sooner than usual. You will have to suicide an overlord to figure out what they are doing, for this type of Protoss is one that in order to beat, you must sacrifice to scout. If you don’t know what they are doing, the advantage they have over you is huge. Avoid playing blindly.

If you see a stargate warping along with a citadel:

• Do not take your natural’s gas, you need minerals and hydralisks at this point. Spend the first 50 gas on a hydra den, and the next 100 gas on a lair. Keep up with supply, and attempt to hide an overlord for a later purpose. Make sure you keep an eye on their natural and their exit at their choke to see if they are trying to expand or try to throw three gateways worth of speed-upgraded zealots at you while the initial corsair tries to hunt down your overlords. Group all of your overlords to your choke point and buff your hydralisks with upgrades. Now and then add a drone to your natural income, and take the gas income when minerals permit as you need more gas for upgrades / hydralisks. Once the lair finishes, you will need to upgrade overlord speed; the Protoss opponent will most likely have dark templar whether he created three gateways for zealots and attacked you or not.
• To deal with three-gateway zealots, your hydras are more than a match. The reason you did not take your natural gas was so you can produce units to counter this, and if he did not produce units you can try to take an easy win when they feel safe behind dark templar and photon cannons.
• If they stayed on the defensive and teched to get high templar and psi storm, DO NOT ATTACK. Attacking is suicide when high templar are around. Instead, set up some overlords around his base to keep an eye on him (also keep some in your base incase he manages to sneak out a dark templar) and set up your units so you can attack him from as many sides as possible if he tries to make an offensive move on you.

At this point, you have either raked in an easy win, or you are busy containing your opponent. As you contain the Protoss, you want to expand like wild fire. Don’t expand so much that you can’t keep constant units. Mix hydralisks and zerglings, get unit upgrades, tech up to spire for scourge and mutalisks, research lurker tech to strengthen your containment (scourge + speed overlords + lurker + army = hell of a tough equation for a Protoss to compete with) and keep an eye on the mini-map. If you can manage all of this, once you get another gas income, start your climb towards hive tech. Ultralisk/zergling will be what the Protoss opponent will fear to have to deal with while they attempt to break the containment.

If you see a stargate warping along with a robotics bay:

• Drone hard and tech for a spire as fast as possible, and make sure to make a pair of zerglings to watch his exit and his natural expanse. Take your natural’s gas and set up two sunken colonies as close to the natural's cliff as you can, and place two more at both sides of your main income. After you receive another 50 gas post-lair, lay a hydralisk den for just enough hydralisks that you deem necessary to take care of the corsair; DO NOT UPGRADE HYDRALISK SPEED OR RANGE, you need this gas for mutalisks and scourge. You only use the hydralisks to have the ability of keeping an overlord overlooking your natural cliff safe; you do not want range dragoons harassing your gas or mineral drones, and you especially do not want photon cannons to be warped in on your cliff.
• Next, expect dragoon/zealot/reaver at your doorstep. You may need a few extra sunken colonies at your natural to defend from these, but you most likely will have mutalisks morphing by this time (unless you lost many overlords and suffered major slowing from cliff-cannons or cliff-dragoons).
• If your mutalisks destroy his opening force, just keep massing mutalisks and add in zerglings. Hit his base, and rake in the win.
• If your mutalisks just make him run away and he keeps his force and secures an expansion, then harass his main base while taking your mineral-only expanse. Get two evolution chambers for range and armor upgrades, and proceed to mass zergling/hydra. Do not let your mutalisks die while harassing, you need them to knock out templar and reaver while the Protoss makes the next offensive to expand again.
• From here on, it’s all judgment. Keep expanding, upgrading and progressing to hive tech. Keep harassing as much as possible, and scout as much as possible to avoid being harassed by templar drops.
  If you see a citadel alone warping in:
• Drone hard, take your natural’s gas and create a pair of zerglings to watch their exit and their natural expanse.
• Tech towards lair and get the hydralisk den when the lair is a tiny amount over œ finished. Get lurker aspect and overlord speed when the lair finishes; also get hydralisk speed (first) and range (second) after lurker aspect is finished.
• Get two evolution chambers for melee and armor upgrades.
• Mass lurker/hydra/ling; attack if there are few cannons, contain if there are too many.
• If you are containing, expand liberally.
• Get a spire for scourge.
• Tech towards hive for ultra/ling.
• Mop the game up.

If you find that the Protoss is expanding, (one gate + two pylons, forge-first for cannons, gateway/forge):

• You can either go do or die and mass pure lings, or play it safe and expand once with pure drones, no zerglings for scouting. Use overlords for scouting, focus on every one drone you can possibly get for the early portion of the game and gas as quickly as possible.
• Tech towards lurker again in the same manner previously explained, and lay a spire down almost simultaneously. Don’t worry about overlord speed yet; you need the gas so you have the ability to get a quick spire.
• Create only a few lurkers, maybe four. You want to have only enough lurkers so you can expand to your mineral-only with a double hatchery. The rest of your gas should be dumped into nine to twelve mutalisks for hardcore harassing.
• While harassing, get two evolution chambers for melee and armor upgrades and begin to mass when your economy is strong enough.
• Add a hatchery or two as minerals increase so you will end up with five to seven hatcheries.
• Mass hydra/ling and expand some more.
• If they try to come out to expand, hit them with everything you have. Rally to where the action is happening so all units can be used. You must have good micromanagement so you can keep all hatcheries’ larvae used up at all times as hydra/ling.

Upgrades and a massive army are the foremost bane of fast expanse Protoss.

There are several other builds you can use versus Protoss:

Hatchery/spawning pool before overlord:
For 12-3 / 3-12 positions on LT, there is a special imbalance that favors Protoss. These bases are abnormally close, so you cannot 12 hatch; your spawning pool will only be 3/4 done (if that) and you will have a zealot in your mining line. This is not a cool situation. Losing 2 or more drones loses your economic edge against Protoss! So, in response to this problem, I like to do something a bit out of the ordinary; cancel your overlord. Make a hatchery as soon as you reel in 300 minerals. Replace that drone, then lay a spawning pool. Replace that drone, then make an overlord. Do an extractor trick. When your overlord finishes, you will have 5 larvae ready for zerglings and 10 drones on minerals.
Here is an easier list to read of this opening;

• Cancel overlord
• 9 hatchery
• 9 spawning pool
• 9 overlord
• extractor trick

You will have to try it to believe its effectiveness; cancelling an overlord does seem horrible, but in this case it works very well.

9 pool:
This build order is reliant on scouting. You can use it at any position as a way to keep yourself safe from proxy-gateway styles / gate + forge offensive cannon styles; anything that one can consider "cheese" is countered by this. It plays on even ground versus normal builds if you can micro well too.

If you find your enemy at a base near you, you can try for early harassment by using this style of 9 pool:

• 9 spawning pool
• 9 extractor
• 8 overlord
• replace the drone for 9/9
• gather gas up to 80, then start taking drones off as they bring in gas one-by-one so you end up with 104 gas. as this is going on, when your spawning pool finishes (around same time as overlord), create 6 zerglings.

From here on, you should make 2 drones, then a hatchery. You can create a third hatchery if you want, or you can stay with two hatcheries and tech. If you decide to 3-hatch, morph your 2nd hatchery in your natural expanse's choke point. If you decide to 2-hatch + tech, make your 2nd hatchery at your expanse. I favor 3-hatchery because it is much more stable economically, and it is not weak against a person who doesn't stop creating zealots. If your opponent hides his zealots from you and you 2-hatch tech with making only drones, he will catch you with your pants down almost always. If you know he is zealoting, your economy will be relatively weak due to the quick tech style; it doesn't allow much room for creating drones.

If your opponent is not next to you, then use this build order for 9 pool:

• 9 spawning pool
• 9 overlord + send out a drone to scout
• extractor trick for 10/9
• 6 zerglings when overlord finishes
• next larvae morphed into a drone; when this drone finishes, morph a hatchery in the same manner as described above; @ your natural expansion if you're 2-hatch teching, @ your natural's choke point if you are playing it safe by 3-hatching.

If you see a 1-gate tech style with your scouting drone, it is safe to forgo zerglings. Make sure to leave your 6 zerglings at his natural's choke to catch scouting probes though.

If you see a 2-gate zealot style, make sure you send an overlord in and scout for whether or not he stopped zealoting to tech. Keep making zerglings if you see no gas / if gas started, switch to pure drone if you see his gas finished and cyber core / forge being warped in.

9 pool post-overlord:

I credit this opening to Tsunami's website, Satanik[pG] and Subkaiser whole heartedly.

This is a safe ZvP 3-hatch expand opening you can use in any position, including the notorious 12-3 / 3-12 spots.

• 9 overlord
• 9 spawning pool
• 11 hatchery @ choke
• 4 larvae worth of zergling, more if you need to fend off a rush
• ~ 17 hatchery @ expanse

Drone or zergling accordingly, and begin to tech when you feel safe from any of the opponent's pressure.

12 pool:

This is another safe style meant for expanding. It sets you up with three hatcheries and early zerglings; with micro, this build is extremely safe. If you know you cannot micro very well, avoid using this. Poor micro will lose you the game against any 2-gate pressure.

The build order works like this:

• 9 overlord + 9 drone scout (if they aren't next to you)
• 12 spawning pool
• 13 hatchery @ natural's choke point
• 6 zerglings
• _16/17 3rd hatchery @ natural expanse

If they are 2-gating, make sure to keep constant zerglings and rally them to your natural expanse area.

If they are teching or expanding, you can morph pure drones.

All of the listed extra build orders connect with the same mid/late-game styles I describe in the 12-hatchery section.

Vs. Terran:

Allowing for overlord sacrifices to see what your Terran opponent is doing is, just like against Protoss, needed. So, first and foremost, know what your opponent is doing. However, against Terran you cannot just leave your overlord in their base because of marines. To get around this, place the overlord that is not watching their exit point at a safe area where it can sit, but can still get into the Terran base efficiently to where tech may lie. When the Terran comes out with his infantry units to contain you at your choke, send the overlord into his base and read what he has.

If you see:

-Three-barracks:
Against three barracks, you absolutely must have no less than six sunken colonies. Anything less will get eaten alive by massive medic + marine. Sometimes, versus a Terran well learned in the art of using medics, even six sunken colonies won’t get the job done; this is especially indefinite for if the Terran finishes an addition to armor upgrades. Once you are sure you are safe, a great bet to beat back three barracks infantry is simply hydra/lurker. You can drop, you can run into their front door by pushing out with your lurkers, you can cliff; whatever you please, you can do. Make sure you upgrade carapace and range, and make sure you morph spire in case you mess up harshly and allow the Terran to easily secure his natural expanse without losing too much of his army or economy. This way, when they lay two factories to beat back your ground army, you can follow quickly up with guardians. Guardians are the answer to all two-factory abuse.

-Two-barracks + factory with machine shop
Expect infantry and a tank or two at your front door soon.

If you already have a spire up, all you must do is keep massing mutalisks and zerglings (only get zerglings if you have ample minerals). Make sure you upgrade speed for zerglings. Usually you can micro mutalisks around the cliffs to pick off marines straying from the cluster of infantry near the tank. Also, patrol behind the mob at your front door and see if you can pick off supply line units. This makes the army you must defeat after your sunken colonies are gone ant-like. Squash. Run into his base after this and end it.

If you have lurkers coming, mix ling/lurker. The lings make good fodder while you burrow your lurkers (which need to ALL be in range of the infantry/tank mob). Wait for your sunkens to be busted through, and try to attack while he sieges/unsieges his tank. This will frazzle your opponent and void the tank of literally any effective shots. After you defeat this mob, do not attack their main. You can try to contain, but the best bet is that he has tank/infantry at home guarding a developing expansion. You must expand twice and lay a spire, and if you are feeling risky, get a ive with your spire. If you are not feeling risky, switch out of ling/lurker to hydra/lurker. Make sure you get scourge no matter what you do. Also, upgrades are direly important; you can beat your opponent solely in upgrades when they do this build for they are lower on gas, especially since they must get science vessel technology after they see a lurker den settled. This slows any upgrades for infantry, unless…

-Two-barracks + acad/e-bay
You can hydra/lurker, ling/lurker, muta/ling, muta/lurker, muta/ling + lurker, hive rush, whatever against this. Do not try to take on the infantry head-on in a do-or-die situation though. Undoubtedly you will lose control of the game whether you beat his army or not, for you are going to lose all of your zerglings to firebats or you will lose many lurkers trying to attack. This build sets off into a long-game situation with Terran, for they can do anything they please based on what you are doing from now on. It places you in a position where you must solely expand, tech and upgrade. Keep an eye on whether or not the Terran two-factory (which should be answered with lurkers), two-port (hydra/lurker/scourge => add ultralisks) or other (hydra/lurker=>ultra). I am not a fan of defilers, for most situations because I am not a lurker/ling user. If you do happen to like using lurker/ling, you may choose defiler against all of the above; make sure you have scourge + proper overlord placement for scouting to defend from science vessel raids on your army.

-Fast Expanse w/ two-barracks + tech or three-barracks + X (x is anything after the mass infantry)
This is tough. Sometimes, you can put all of your eggs into one basket by solely mass four-hatch muta/ling to run them over, but when the Terran defends himself successfully and efficiently, the amount they will be producing goes out of the roof and fending off your muta/ling mass is of nothing. My preferred way of dealing with this is four-hatch muta/ling w/ double evolution chamber upgrades for melee and carapace => double or single expand to another gas income => ultra/ling. Many people tech straight to defiler and ling/lurk, which works well also. Another option is lurker + drop harassment => expanse => guardian (since they will be going two-factory if you get enough lurkers). Keep your alternate base expansions alive, and do not lose any of your army pointlessly. Try to keep him in his base fending off harassments in order to buy time to get the hive unit of your choice.

-One-barracks + tech w/ no block or w/ block

You can do one of two things against this:

1. With your first 50 gas, lay a hydralisk den. With the next 100 gas, upgrade a hatchery to a lair. Group your overlords to one area, preferably your choke so you can defend the overlords from all angles in case wraiths show up. You can either lay a spire for mutalisks once the lair finishes or research speed/drop for overlords. If you see wraiths, research speed first. If you do not see wraiths, research drop.
2. With the first 100 gas, research a lair. Mass drones and only do two-hatchery, for you will need minerals to lay an evolution chamber + spore colony at both incomes. This is NOT a preferred strategy if you are in a position where you are forced to three-hatchery (twelve spot on Game-I LT). You could lose more overlords than normal, or you could possibly lose a hatchery / whole game due to wraith harassment on the open hatchery that has no mineral node / that hatchery’s sunken defense.

Three-barracks infantry almost always follow wraiths; almost all other instances will be a drop with infantry on one income area. Get a spire within a spore’s defense range once the lair finishes, and get scourge + muta once the spire finishes. This version is the safest against tech Terran, for it counters people who do a quick two-tank drop the cliff rather than two-port.

If you do not see wraiths relatively early (and in a duo; this means that you see two wraiths come to your base at the same time, characteristic of two-port), that means they are either doing this, or they are making two-factory vultures or goliaths… or possibly three-factory goliaths. Your two zerglings at their choke / natural expanse node will catch if they are making vultures. No matter what, since you know no early wraiths are coming, set up two creep colonies – one near your main income, one near your 2nd income.

Per chance you do see vultures, morph the two creep colonies into sunkens, and if you want, you can create a sunken or two at your choke point which blocks a direct path to your income; this will kill more vultures, and it will leave some weakened; since the person will be so jumpy after their vultures run through, the weakened remaining vultures could become subject to death because of the sunken you morphed near your main income node - anxiety results in piss poor micromanagement of vultures. Mass mutalisk/zergling, and add scourge if they happen to throw in valkyries with their mechanical war machine. Make sure you upgrade carapace for both mutalisks and zerglings; goliaths do half damage to both as is, so you can capitalize on the massively decreased damage rate that both zerglings and mutalisks.

Alternate build-orders you can use for opening ZvT are:

10/9 pool:

This is the build order I adore to use in competitive environments, because it beats up proxy barracks (when your opponent builds his barrackses in the middle of the map so that he has the ability to rush you faster than normal), and it kills their ability to scout you early-on. It also defends from / counters / slows 8 barracks builds, CC before barracks builds and tech builds (unless your opponent is at the 9 spot on LT where the terran block is tight enough to cut off zerglings from passing through).

• with your 9th drone, perform the extractor trick so you have 10/9 drones
• 10/9 spawning pool
• 9 overlord + scout with a drone
• extractor trick again
• as soon as overlord finishes, 1 drone for a total of 11 drones
• as soon as your spawning pool finishes, you will have 4 larvae ready to me morphed into zerglings, then as soon as those eggs form another larvae will pop out making it 6 zerglings.
• expand with the drone you created after your overlord (11th drone) or place it at your choke point if you wish to 3 hatch.

If you are creating 3 hatcheries...

• morph 2 more drones after you expand
• wait until you have 300, then lay your third hatchery at your expanse.

If your opponent is pulling an attack off on you with scv/marine, forgo expanding for the time being; make zerglings as needed and get two sunkens laid on your choke point's hatchery.

12-pool:

This is another safe opening to use versus terran. It is somewhat weak to scv/marine early-on before you get the ability to create sunken colonies, but with superior micromanagement that threat can be easily overcome. It sets you up for a 3-hatchery build that is strong in mineral count, but techs a little slowly.

• 9 overlord + 9 drone scout
• 12 spawning pool
• 13 hatchery @ choke point
• 6 zerglings (unless you have no fear of pressure)
• _16/17 hatchery (if you made 6 lings) or _14/15 hatchery (if you made drones) @ natural expanse; you can add a drone for 17 hatch if you want to be a little greedy, but it isn't very necessary.
• get your gas when you can keep all eggs of all hatcheries morphed into something; this ensures your ability to set up sunken colonies in case your opponent decides to send an early m&m force to you. You don't want to get caught with your pants down due to taking your gas too early.

Vs. Zerg:

This may come as an upset to the reader, but I have to be honest about this match up. Every Zerg versus Zerg game is unique no matter what build order you do, for each game is subjective based on situation. I will be able to give tips on how to handle broad situations, but the most important part in Zerg versus Zerg is when you can or cannot get away with making extra drones. All I can say for this is scout. Sending out a drone to find your opponent as quickly as possible is dire; leave that drone in that base until your overlords get there. If he makes drones, you make drones. If he makes zerglings, make one more drone and then start making zerglings. NEVER SPECULATE WITH DRONES AND ZERGLINGS; BLINDLY CREATING THEM WILL LOSE YOU GAMES.

Four styles of Zerg will be seen in this match up: hydra/ling, muta/ling, scourge/ling and muta/scourge/ling. Here is a list of counters for all of the above:

Counter to hydra/ling: Attack upgraded mutalisks / Carapace upgraded zerglings,
OR
Expand and use sunk/lurk defense; tech to guardians.

Counter to muta/ling: Scourge/ling => expand + morph spore colonies @ income nodes => start massing mutalisks. Get a head start on upgrades with the extra gas you get with your superior economy.
OR
Muta/scourge/ling.

Counter to scourge/ling: Scourge/ling (upgrade + macro + micro + scourge-the-overlords war).

Counter to muta/scourge/ling: Scourge/ling => expand + morph spore colonies @ income nodes => start massing mutalisks. Same as with the counter to muta/ling; make sure you attack move onto your opponents’ mutalisks dead-on that way your scourge don’t do circles or the go-past the muta, look at it, then attack it ordeal; his scourge will kill yours if you don’t attack right away.

There are some key things to look out for with your drone:

Nine-Pool:
This build order is very distinct, and you will recognize it in no time when you see it. Your drone will either run into six zerglings on their way out of your opponent’s base, or you will fine the pool finishing up / eggs already in creation. A little thing that I always liked that Tsunami did was take his twelve-hatchery and move it two clicks apart from the main hatchery, then stick a creep colony in-between. This covers all of your minerals, and it generally covers anywhere where your opponent may offensive sunken you (make sure when you see a drone in your base that you send one of your drones after it at all times when you twelve-hatch). This may be what you want to do in ZvZ when you use twelve-hatch in case you have to fend off an early-zergling build. If you see zerglings or any other distinct sign of nine-pool, slap down a creep colony on the spot. When the zerglings come, you will most likely just be able to start up zerglings of your own / sunken. Just run your drones around from gas to minerals avoiding engagement with your opponent’s zerglings. After you fend off the zerglings, you are in control of the game for you are successfully defended and you can get more drones than he can for free and quicker due to having two hatcheries. Watch out though because you may have to set up a spore colony or two if your opponent made a quick lair; no big deal considering you have a superior economy now!

Any post-nine-overlord pool + gas build:
Keep an eye on whether he makes drones or zerglings. You can forgo getting zergling speed against this and just put hold-position zerglings on your ramp if you want, but I personally emphasize the use of speed-lings at all times. Without speed, zerglings are too slow in Z v Z and can easily be taken advantage of by faster moving zerglings (balls of zerglings break up quicker with speed upgrade that balls of zerglings without the speed upgrade). Scourge/ling is the ticket against these builds, but muta/scourge/ling works well too. Do not muta/ling against the pool/gas first builds unless you make an extractor before you make your own spawning pool (big risk).

Fast expanse:
Stop collecting gas and expand too. From here on, it’s mimicry with zerglings and drones. You’ll have three hatcheries, which is one hatchery up on him, so you can have one hatchery constantly producing drones if you are forced to counter your opponent who is creating zerglings off of his two hatcheries (you will probably never see this; most of the time, the opponent will be using a sunk/ling defense while he techs for lair and masses some drones). Get a gas going as soon as you lay your third hatchery at your expanse down, and force yourself to get a lair with the first 100 gas that rolls in. Don’t worry about the zergling speed upgrade in this case; if he is massing speed-lings, make a couple sunkens to pair up with your zerglings. Focusing on making three-hatch mutalisk is the main idea here. Make sure you get spore colonies at your incomes, and play defensively. Keep upgrades rolling, and keep an eye out for if your opponent is getting a hive or not for devourers; if he is, you should get a hive as well. A neat trick people use in situations where both players mass mutalisks is to research overlord speed and send a hotkey full of overlords with your mutalisks. Let overlords get hit up first by your opponents’ mutalisks, and have your mutalisks following them. Not only will you get the first strike, your overlords will be soaking much of the glaive bouncing damage for your mutalisks.

If your opponent happens to be going for hydralisks off of this expanse, do indeed make sunken/lurker defense. Take the islands, and tech for guardians. Keep an eye out for your opponent throwing up a spire. If he does make a spire, make sure you add mutalisk/devourer with your guardians. Guardian/muta/devourer is a fearsome combination for hydra/muta to have to deal with.

I am going to add a more traditional Zerg vs Zerg build order here; it is one of the safest (versus rushes) openings for the matchup, and it can solidly counter any given situation without having to think too much to the extreme:

11 gas, 12 pool:

-11 extractor
-12 spawning pool
-13 hatchery
-13 zergling speed upgrade
-13 through 16 zerglings
-17 overlord... then zerglings for 18

From here you either drone, which is a proper counter to fast expand so you can gain an effective economical advantage when you lay a third hatchery at your expanse, or you create zerglings, which is the usual one base vs one base Zerg vs Zerg up until you get to the split with creating scourge + expanse, muta/scourge, muta only, and so on.

I am also going to include several other build orders I have been testing off and on;

9 extractor, 11 pool:

-after 9 overlord, 9 extractor
-11 spawning pool
-13 hatchery

As you can see, this is a mass-gas build order; low minerals early-on means slower spawning pool, slower second hatchery. This makes you weak to zergling harassment. To counter this, you MUST lay a sunken colony effectively behind your hatcheries so that your drones can help defend. You need to mass portions of zerglings as well; if you see your opponent massing zerglings, you should mass them too, but throw in a few drones here and there. If you see your opponent throw up a fast evolution chamber (signifies upgrades + mass zergling), throw up two sunken colonies instead of just one.

This build is not an easy one to use, and if your opponent fast expands and throws up spore colonies, you may be in a bit of trouble since they can power up two gases and not have to worry much about defense (if you make many zerglings for offensive purposes + get zergling speed, you render this build pointless; the gas is for pure mutalisk with early upgrade, or muta/scourge). If you try to make offensive Zerglings versus a fast expanse, you will see what I mean about ruining the point of this opening.

A last variance for Zerg versus Zerg that I like to use (achieved 1378 nG-i high during the beta season using this for ZvZ) is 9 pool. It is safe; you can be offensive with it, and you can play defensively with it with building-up speed in equal proportion to the traditional ZvZ opening (11 gas, 12 pool, 13 hatchery) there is one addition to the equality of speed: you get more gas!

-9 spawning pool (before overlord)
-9 gas (before overlord)
-8 overlord, replace drone to get back up to 9

If your opponent is nearby you and you observe each other (12-3 LT, 6-9 LT or 2-player map like Rush Hour), you may pressure your opponent with speed-upgraded zerglings, where you would only get enough gas with your gas-mining drones to get the speed upgrade (once you get to 80, you take off drones as they bring in gas one-by-one) that way you bring in minerals a bit more quickly so you can get a 2nd hatchery quicker. Your second choice, which is recommended when your opponent is not nearby you, is to not bother with early-on pressure. I love this choice, because right when your overlord finishes, you have your 3 larvae out and your spawning pool finished; making 3 eggs appear looks like you are rushing your opponent (which they will catch if they are nearby, or they will catch with a scouting drone). This will scare them into laying a creep colony, and if they laid a spawning pool irregularly (not likely in long-distance ZvZ where they found you a little late) early in response to seeing your spawning pool morphed so early, they may create zerglings. Once they see three drones pop, they will think to themselves, "shit, there goes the game if i can't do any damage with these zerglings!"

Your duty from here is to wait until you get enough minerals to lay your hatchery, then make zerglings if you see him exit his ramp with the zerglings he created. If he plays defensively (lays a sunken, doesn't morph zerglings), then get one more drone, then lay a hatchery. Regardless of what you do, make sure that you start lair-tech by 15 supply. The only exception to that is if you need to lay an emergency creep colony (if he tries to offensive sunken you), or if you need extra zerglings to stop him (when they go all-in and mass zergling you). Most of the time, both of those situations go together, and both of those responses must go together as well. Pull your gas drones so you can put them on minerals if this happens, and first chance you get, research zergling speed upgrade. It's important to note that in long-distance ZvZ (on LT: 12 to 6, 3 to 9, 6 to 3, etc.) where scouting is a little late, you start a lair on 13 then create zerglings until you know whether or not drones are safe to create (look at what he's hatching, look at his already-existing zergling count).

If he's not offensive, you can either scourge/ling with this build (get zergling speed for this choice), which is the route I always took on nG-i, or you can forgo zergling speed and go pure mutalisk or muta/scourge.

I hope that this guide is a great help to whoever may be in need, or that it is a fine read to brush up on tactics and to learn a few new tricks for the veterans. If any have anything to add to this or any have questions, I can be reached on SCU’s forums or Battle.net as Phi)TheRecluse on USWest and G()|)|y^RiCe- / listal on USEast. Thanks for reading!