Zerg and Toss Strategy Changes

Once, while watching StarCraft games on Twitch, I remember hearing the commentator say something about a zerg player not wanting to make his extractors until about six minutes into the game. This little tidbit of wisdom stood out to me because I had been playing zerg very differently.

When I random as zerg, I always go for 15 hatch, 15 pool, 15 extractor. Following that up with baneling or roach attacks, as the matchup goes. Zerg, for the longest time, used to be my prime race.

But this season, I’ve been doing horribly with zerg. They are now my most losing race. So I decided I had to rediscover what openings to use this season.

Turns out, in ZvZ matchups, you now have to early pool. There is no one time to pool that is always best, it varies map to map. But I find that a 14 extractor, 14 pool, into speedlings and banelings tends to work well.

ZvZ nowadays is all about the baneling wars. And rightfully so. Two banelings can destroy your opponent’s economy. And a pool first build vs a hatchery first build can almost always have the zerglings streaming in before a proper wall off is made.

But in the other two matchups, I’ve followed the advice of that commentator whose name I can’t recall. And to good results. I’ve finally had my first ZvP win with a 15 hatch, 15 pool, no gas until six minutes. If a scout a four gate attack, I simply build a lot of spines. If nothing comes right away, I wall off with detection for the inevitable dark templar cheese. Also, when doing this no gas until six minutes build, its important to have constant queen production. They will help in the event of oracles or early gate attacks. You need that creep spread and transfuse.

I’ve enjoyed equal success using the same build against terran opponents. One of the best things about it, is it lets you choose nearly any tech path you want. Because some terrans build legitimate defense against mutes, and when that happens, you want to be able to transition into a composition that will allow you to keep a turtling terron on two base.

The only other development in my StarCraft play comes in PvZ and PvP. I’ve been using a nice little Core into Stargate build. Traditionally, in a PvZ I would nexus first. But that hasn’t been going so well for me. Hence the one base Stargate play, expanding shortly thereafter. The idea is to build phoenix and do a ton of harass.

As a natural mutalisk player, I really like going for early phoenix. I find I’m quite good at sniping queens, overlords, and drones. Even denying thirds.

What’s great is that the same build works in PvP. Part of the reason why is that you can easily snipe the mothership core. That alone usually keeps a protoss in his base. But what really makes the build work is how it counters other builds. Because it snipes the MSC, it can shut down blink play. And with the ability to pick up immortals, it can counter pushes with that unit, too. As a matter of fact, having a small cloud of around 5 or more phoenix shut down oracles, and even straight up gateway pushes, as they will remove as many units from your opponent’s attack.