SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

I’ve been learning Zerg lately, and I thought I’d share my thoughts.

All:
• I love that there are all these little things you can work on: injecting, spreading creep, positioning ovies and sending lings off to scout.
• I like that the majority of the micro is about positioning and controlling the meat of your army: setting up the roach hydra concave, executing the zergling flank, guiding the banelings into the clumps of marines. Infestors and vipers both have really awesome roles as support units, and don’t dominate the way you micro in the same way that spell casters like sentries, HT, the mothership core and blink stalkers do Protoss micro.
• My APM is way higher than it is when I play Toss. In the lead up to ACL Syd last year I trying desperately to play faster, pouring every little bit of energy into the game, and I’d hit 170 APM at max. Yet after just 150 or so games as Zerg I’m already having games where I get 200 APM.

ZvT
This matchup is AMAZING! I love the constant interactions between players, from reapers and hellions in the early game to the endless bio parade pushes and drops in the mid-late game. The dynamic of ling, bane muta vs MMMM is so interesting, in that it’s not just two armies head-butting into each other and there are so many different ways to play it. I can try rush him with all my units before he sets up his mines and splits his bio, or I can be patient – sending in dribbles of ling bane while picking off stray units with my muta flock, and waiting for him to venture too far onto creep where I can crush him with reinforcements. Keeping up with your creep spread, injects and production while managing these complex army fights is nearly impossible, but when you start to get it right it’s incredibly satisfying.

Things to work on:
• Counterattacking; I need to strive to send lings for runbys, get the mutas on top of his production and roll some banelings into his mineral lines.
• Playing against mech; I’ve mostly failed to scout and react to mech, and this is certainly going to be a challenge without the old swarm host.
• Creep spread and injects; this is such a mechanical matchup, and there will be continual room for improvement in this area.

ZvP
This matchup is hard, though perhaps partly because it is the one I have played the least. Protoss armies are so cost efficient, and some of the bullshit that I run into makes me wonder if I was playing PvZ wrong.

Things to work on:
• Droning; it’s everything in this matchup. Too many games I’m just 5 or so workers ahead of my opponent. I really need to work on getting up to that 70+ mark, and then spamming units.

ZvZ
I was enjoying this matchup, but after running into successive 2-0s against Crimson, Chobosniper and Alopex on the weekend, I’ve realized that it can pretty frustrating. I like when people throw early cheese at me, but dislike when thay make a big swell of speedlings further into the game, and hit me just as I think they’re playing macro. I’m playing gasless into roach, so that means a lot of roach vs roach, which despite being pretty uninteresting, I sort of enjoy.

Things to work on:
• Scouting; I need to stop doing my build blindly and start to be much more aware of what my opponent is doing, so I’m not caught off-guard by a delayed ling bane attack or a super quick 3rd.

Zerg is fun, and it has definitely re-ignited my passion for SC2. I'd encourage anyone else who is finding Starcraft a bit stale to consider learning a new race.