[SLCN.NXZ]

Introduction

Hey everyone, NXZ here, for those that care I'm sitting in the lower 100 of GM on SEA with a pretty extensive bonus pool due to the following reason. I'm away right now and can't play any sc2 so I thought why not write a guide for all you lovely people. Forgive me for any formatting details as I'm on my iPhone atm and also have no replays that I can post. When I get back and ladder some, I'll try (READ: will) upload some. Hope you enjoy!

UPDATES
Alright I'm back, and I'm getting some replays for the guide which should be up later. I am updating the formatting and some of the content right now, will be extending the mid game section A LOT when I get to it. Probably not right now though. GL HF

Basic Build Order

+ Show +

9overlord/drone scout*
15 pool
14 gas
15 overlord
15 queen
17 4 lings
Ling speed 1 drone off gas
Second queen and roach warren when first queen finishes.
23 overlord

14 drone scout on TDA or maybe Antiga shipyard (basically the 4 player maps with 4 different spawns. Put the last drone on gas when you are going to get +1

Early Game and Variations

+ [Vs hatch first] +

Vs a speed first or no gas hatch first.
When you scout this you want to make a hatchery instead of the roach warren while getting a bane nest once you can afford it (If you've started the roach warren has been started before your lings or overlord scout it, cancel the roach warren and make a hatchery). Try and use quicker speed to contain him, make sure he gets no scouting via lings. It is crucial to scout mineral lines during this period to check saturation, if he's making units or doesn't have a high drone saturation compared to yourself you need to make a spine or two and start making as many units as possible. Once your bane nest finishes immediately make 1-2 banelings at your base to defend from mass ling aggression. If he is morphing banelings, defend (adding a spine if necessary) while trying to sneak in a drone here and from there make a roach warren when you can afford it and transition to midgame. If he is droning too hard attack him with your ling/bane force pumping either lings or drones behind it depending on the likelihood of you succeeding with a following attack.

If, however, they go for the safer roach defense (this build makes a roach warren as soon as its pool finishes to get roaches in time for baneling builds) he does not have the necessary tech or production to be aggressive without going all-in. If he tries to attack immediately counter with your speedlings. This will either cripple him economically or delay his attack both of which are desirable outcomes. Make a roach warren after you have decent saturation between your 2 bases with 2 queens up, don't begin it immediately and get a baneling nest regardless in case of roach/ling attacks.

NOTE: the most important part of playing against hatch first is keeping tabs on his army and drone saturation. As the speedling expand player it is up to you to react and make drones or lings. Where as he has to either make units and stay safe or make drones and die if you attack him. This means that the speedling expand player (once his second hatch kicks in) can choose whether to make drones or units with their larva where as hatch first has to always be making at least a few units because they don't know whether your just gonna go kill him. This means that if he plays greedy you attack and win, if he makes mostly units you do the same and if he goes for a mix of units and drones to stay safe while not dying you should make all drones and slightly less units then him.(When his speed kicks in you have to play a bit less all knowing as he will be able to keep tabs on you as well.

+ [Vs 1 base roach] +

If you do drone scout.
Play normally but get a roach Warren out instead of a second queen. Put drones back on gas while making as many roaches as possible. He will either attack with a speedling followup, defend and get a expand, or get roaches to defend while he techs.

If he goes for an attack, the key to staying alive is threatening constant counter attacks with lings to delay him moving out for as long as possible. Keeping the lings alive for is your goal, as when you have speedlings out and he doesn't he has to play afraid of your potential counter. All this back and forth dancing is to buy you time for your own*roach Warren to finish, when it does, make as many roaches as you can at once then all speedlings. The reason being that your lings can only delay for so long and lings have a much shorter build time, meaning that if you continue trying to save for roaches they won't be done for when his attack comes. When it does, you should have less roaches but more lings, *focus your roaches on his and try and surround either his roaches or maybe even his lings at any opportunity.*If he doesn't do any large damage to you, you will have a significant advantage going into the midgame.

Against the roach expand you want to drone while pressuring with your speedlings. Add on a second queen when you can afford it after spending all your larva or before then if his natural finishes. Apply the sane principles as before if he moves out. Once again the key to knowing if aggression is coming is keeping constant tabs on his roach numbers and more importantly his drone count at his natural (obviously if you can scout his main's saturation with a ling or an overlord however never lose an overlord to do so).

Against 1 base tech or some sort roach opening with no attack or expand for a while. Sac an overlord maybe even two to find out what he's doing. Generally you should drone to minimum saturation on on base then add only roach ling and try and get a queen at your natural for injects and possible mutas. I don't know much about these builds but you can generally expect either mutas, infestors, or a burrow roach +1 timing.

If you do not drone scout
Continue with your own 1 base roach taking expand after your first 6 roaches while using your lings to watch his roach count. If he doesn't expand for maybe 30 secs after you have taken your own make only units and a spine at the top of your ramp if you can afford it. Use your second queen to transfuse your roaches if he does attack. Otherwise play it out like the speedling expand except without the threat of a counter attack

+ [Vs ling/bane] +

This section can somewhat combine with one base roach due to the similarity of the openings between the two builds your opponent is using.

Only make your initial 4 lings and a few drones, then make overlords so that you have at least 10 supply free when your roach warren finishes. Your roach warren should finish just after your first inject pops letting you make 5-6 roaches immediately. Use your 2 queens to block the ramp until your roaches pop allowing you to defend the attack. *Attempt to expand after you have around 7 roaches.

Defend his aggression and you're ahead

+ [12 or earlier pool] +

+ [Vs 12 pool] +

This build is designed to hit at a weird timing where it has speed done and an extra inject of units while your speed is about to finish. Hold off the initial attack and you should be ahead. From there play it out as you would normally which in most cases will be to expand as the most common followup is roaches.

+ [Vs 10 pool baneling] +

This build skips speed for an ultra fast baneling nest. Try and split your drones so you take minimal damage and as long as he doesn't get too many big baneling hits you should be fine.

NOTE: Remember it takes 2 banelings to kill a drone so if you kill everything he has but one baneling just keep mining as it can't kill your drones. Also if you are having trouble splitting manually try the F1 split. Which involves selecting all your drones pressing stop then holding F1 while clicking in a circle around the edge of your screen. Press control F1 afterwards and click back on your minerals. (if you require a more in depth explanation; search for F1 split and you should find some more info.)

+ [Vs 10 pool speed] +

This build is just a more aggressive 12 pool and as such, has similar counters, however it is much more difficult for him to transition out of then the 12 pool. This means that if you can survive his timing you will be ahead. From here play safe if you can't immediately kill him with a counter and transition to roaches.

+ [Vs 9/10 pool] +

The biggest part of beating this build is to survive the initial zerglings and then not try to all-in him back. Although tempting, most 9 pools will followup with 2 queens and roaches, which you cannot break with speedlings or banelings. So instead, once defended immediately go back to your standard build and you should be far ahead. (apply same principles as you do vs 1 base roach)

+ [Vs 8 or earlier pool] +

He'll probably bring some drones to make a spine crawler/s. Just stay calm, try and get 4 of your drones to kill the spine crawler. Use the rest to try and surround the lings using mineral walk micro. If you get the surround you'll win the fight. If you don't get the surround (eg. he pulls his lings away to a place where you can't get a surround) you will lose so pull back. Keep dancing your drones with the zerglings until your zerglings pop and you clean up (remember that with 14/14 you will not have enough drones to fight him if you do not get a perfect surround, especially if he brings all his drones). When his first 6 zerglings arrive stop mining gas and don't get lingspeed until after you defend. Getting a queen and zerglings out is your priority. There are several variations of this build to consider. Ranging from the only 6 lings to the all drones and 1 or more spinecrawlers. Against any of the builds that bring all the drones you can't split 4 drones off to kill a spine or his lings/drones will kill your other drones. Instead you must stall for lings with all your drones and try to avoid an engagement. The biggest micro tip is to use mineral walking to get surrounds and escape opposing surrounds. When fighting him always stay in your mineral line until lings are out. Another cute micro trick is to hold position weak drones, instead of pulling them back as when hold positioned the drone gains a lower attack priority allowing you to maintain the same dps but not lose any drones unless he specifically targets that drone. Once you hold you want to get speed and counter with speedlings. Sneak in some drones while doing this and expand when you get the money.

+ [Vs another speedling expand] +

This is an interesting topic as all the possible counters, counter themselves in a way too. Instead I'll split this into multiple sections.Don't think that doing a "higher league" counter means you're better. In fact these different strategies are based on your opponents skill rather then your own. Basically, if your doing a "higher league" build in a lower league you're actually lowering your ability for an easier win. Fact is even most players in GM will have trouble defending a good baneling bust with a speedling expand.

+ [Below masters] +

As soon you scout it immediately transition to 1 base ling/bane and then proceed to try and either outright kill him or at least force a kill on the expansion. This allows you to abuse lower leagues inability to micro effectively vs banes to get a quick win or at least equalize the field.

+ [Masters] +

With drone scout
Verify which version of a speedling expand he is completing whether it is pure speedlings with 2 queens or expand into banes with only 1 queen. From this point you want to go expand into banelings while playing defensive if he goes banes and aggressive if he doesn't. Get a second queen up when you can afford it.

Without drone scout
Get 6 roaches up and take your expand. Get +1 with your next 100 gas when you don't need to make roaches. Use your speed to scout his drone count, if he has little units do a roach attach with reinforcing lings. Otherwise apply generic zvz rules and make it safely to the mid game.

+ [Early game scouting] +

+ [Why the drone scout?] +

OK, I know all the pros say don't drone scout, I even prefer it a lot of the time. However, most pros don't do reactive build orders like this, if they're going to speed expand, they're going to do that no matter what they're opponent does. This means that if they drone scout they don't change their build anyway, they just know what's coming. So with our reactive build, the drone scout allows us to pick and choose which transition we wish to head for. For now, surviving the early game safely and easily is worth the economy that you lose. If you start feeling more confident in other plays (hatch first, speed expand vs everything), feel free to stop drone scouting.

+ [Basic Early Game Scouting] +

Your first drone/overlord will see a lot of things. If he has taken a pool then gas he is going 1 base roach or a faster hatch, slower speed, speedling expand; your first lings can confirm either build. If you see 14/14 wait for his pool to finish and after he starts ling speed if he keeps drones on gas that means he's going ling/bane or maybe one base roach. React to it like it's a ling/bane play unless you can scout a roach warren before your own begins. If he pulls drones off gas after speed he's going speedling expand and follow the above plan. Hatch firsts and early pools are self explanatory when you scout them, apart from identifying his gas timing; helping you to determine his speed timing, whether he is going roaches or even banes, a lot of things can be determined by gas timings. Also with your overlords spread them in a line from his base to your base along the attack path. Make sure to retreat them if they're creep spreads too far, or you suspect or scout mutas/hydras.

Mid game

I define mid game in zvz as the point where you're both on 2 base with 2 queens up and decent saturation while teching and making either roaches or lings (in the case of muta play) and trying to squeeze out as many drones as possible.*

In zvz the defenders advantage is huge. This is why players like destiny favor harassing as much as possible(4 infestor hit squad) and forcing an engagement where while their army may be weaker they have much stronger reinforcements and positioning (destiny abuses this especially so by using infestors and spines so that when an attack comes he has a massive defenders advantage). As such, during the midgame you should always aim to be the defender unless his army is much worse than yours. This means the ideal situation is to try and sneak in 1 or 2 drones while making enough roaches to defend. Make sure to be constantly scouting with speedlings to scout any greediness or all in attempts. Abuse your investment in speed as much as possible. As the game progresses you'll find yourself with a significant drone lead (remember a 5 drone lead is huge in a mirror match-up).

For tech, I prefer getting a fast +1 ranged attack and from there teching lair with 3 gas, adding the fourth when your lair is half done. Getting roach speed and a hydra den when it completes. When your +1 attack is finishing add another evo and get +1 carapace and +2 ranged attack. From there head to 2 base roach hydra on 4 gas, allowing you a solid all round build vs mutas, infestors and opposing hydras. Then take your third when you can and once you have secured the extra gases transition to roach/hydra/infestor while adding +2 carapace on 3 bases.

End game
More often than not the game will end before you get here.However when it does you want be prepared for it. At this stage of the game you want to be harassing as much as possible, taking more bases (this is huge), getting more upgrades and teching to hive. From there you want to be getting some broodlords out and using them alongside your harrass and defense of their harass to take the game. If he goes broods before you, your goal is to get a higher corruptor count then your opponent to kill his broodlords, you must avoid any fungals though. Upgrades on roaches and hydras is more important than greater spire.

Possible Changes
Using PiG's build and going 15 pool 14 gas for a slightly improved economy and slightly delayed speed. While also removing the drone scout and going roach expand vs 1 base builds and speed expand vs hatch first. I feel this build is better if you get the overlord scout in but I feel like roach expand vs speedling expand is like hatch first vs speedling expand in map control but instead of a stronger economy like hatch first does it has a weaker one.

Replays

+ [Game 1 (vs a 9/10 pool) NXZ vs Churlz] +

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=619

+ [Game 2 (vs Hatch first) NXZ vs chipz] +

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=620

+ [Game 3 (vs delayed speed expand) NXZ vs ZergGirl] +

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=621

+ [Game 4 (vs hatch first) NXZ vs Chipz again!] +

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=622

+ [Game 5 (vs Speed expand into Mutas) NXZ vs Pox] +

http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=623

Thanks for reading!

Quick Comments

	LOSDoG:	very well put bro love how you put things into catagories
	Zanderax:	You forgot the late game :P JK
	TcaTX:	Excellent read great job! My early game ZvZ as been suffering of late and this will help!
	QEDJenkins:
	nirvAnA:
	Rageboredguy:
	sRFullstop:
	PiG:	great analysis of my build! Good safe advice for everything else too!
	xGKingdelete:

[FaDeBadger]

No idea how accurate it is, cause I don't play zerg. But kudos for the effort! Looks good.

Quick Comments

SLCN.NXZ:

[ToRSpartaz]

Sure is a long post bro^^ decent content well done

Quick Comments

SLCN.NXZ:

[SLCN.NXZ]

Thanks for commenting guys!

Apologies if at some points it is hard to read as it began as notes for a friend. Hope it helps you guys!

[Maynarde]

Hey man, I love it when people give back to the community by giving strategies and ways to improve play the way you've done. So thank you

I do however, suggest you format it a bit. It's a bit of a wall of text and it's hard to read! I suggest you look at System's D3 Beta Key winning guide on how to format your posts and sexify it some

Quick Comments

SLCN.NXZ:

[SLCN.NXZ]

I will when I get access to a computer which will probably be this Sunday. I'll make the content more readable too. Thanks for commenting

[SLCN.NXZ]

Updated!!!! I'm back and I'm ready to go own some scrubs up and get those replays for you guys!!!

gl hf

Quick Comments

Maynarde:

[sRFullstop]

Looks way nicer when formatted. Good effort with the guide, and I think most of it is accurate.

Quick Comments

SLCN.NXZ:

[SLCN.NXZ]

Just died in mid game vs zerggirl, must remember to update that part of the guide. Also thanks Fullstop .

2 replays down, more on the way!

[ZergGirl]

Originally Posted by NXZ

Just died in mid game vs zerggirl, must remember to update that part of the guide. Also thanks Fullstop .

2 replays down, more on the way!

I'm a pig ;(

Quick Comments

Maynarde:

[iM yang]

Originally Posted by ZergGirl

I'm a pig ;(

does that mean you stream without your shirt on?

Quick Comments

	ZergGirl:	obv
	SLCN.NXZ:	I lol'd

[Rageboredguy]

Wow, good looking guide on what i always find to be a tough match-up. Thanks for writing this.

Quick Comments

SLCN.NXZ:

[SLCN.NXZ]

No problem mate, hope it helps you! Replays going up now !!

[SLCN.NXZ]

haha , i made like 80 drones (got like maximum saturation on 2 base, lost half my drones then remade to that saturation :O). Had like 2-2 to your 1-0, poor game by me

[ZergGirl]

I was 2-0, you were 2-2 from memory ^^;

I just went infestors earlier (based on the drones I saw you pumping, so I cut drones early) I had to spend gas on Pathogen Glands, slower upgrades >_<. I figured my fat banelings would scare your hydras away.

As I said, I was being a pig
Great guide

Quick Comments

SLCN.NXZ:

[nirvAnA]

good initiative

please upload your replays as a zip file not posting them as individual replays as its taking up all the space in the latest replays

[SLCN.NXZ]

I shoulda just uploaded it via attatchments or something, will do for next replays I get. Thanks for commenting.

[syfPhoenix]

much love helps alot

[SLCN.NXZ]

Considering removing drone scout, or at least delaying it. However if I delay it there's little to no purpose to the scout but if I scout early it cripples you hard economically.

[sRFullstop]

Usually when you go 14/14 you don't drone scout because the build is safe against early pool and scouting anything won't change your reaction. I think you should only drone scout if you're doing Hatch first.