[Satu]

Introduction
A month or two ago, a player called Aquanda showed zergs a new style of ZvP that used zerglings and banelings instead of roaches and hydras. He mass expanded, got a huge economy up and then sent wave after wave at his opponents, until they fell apart. Recently, MorroW has used the style of ling/baneling at MLG columbus, but he did it in a slightly different way, that although less economic, seemed to have few holes in the build at all. He managed to crush many protoss opponents at MLG columbus using this same build as his standard ZvP build.

For those of you who don't know what ling/baneling in an engagement looks like, heres FXOSLoG vs mouzMorroW from MLG Columbus:

Before


Scary toss army ;(


Omg now my lings cant hit you. I guess I'll just fly my overlords over and...


Wait... Where'd you go?


After (Protoss supply dropped by 56!)

The Build Order
After reviewing his MLG ZvP replays, I managed to write up the build that MorroW used. I saw a few inconsistencies in his play, and after thinking very hard about each stage, I managed to find the optimal timing for everything tech-related.

14pool
15hatch w/ 2drones, if pylon, pull back.
15overlord
16queen
18 x2ling + gas
20/21hatch if the 15hatch was blocked
@92 gas start pulling drones
@100 gas metabolic boost
@95% metabolic boost, 3 drones on gas
@40 gas, evo chamber
@100 gas, melee attacks lv 1
@100% evo chamber, x3gas
@90 gas, evo chamber
@150 gas, carapace lv 1
@100 gas, lair
@20s lair, make bane nest.
@100% lair, overlord drops & speed, bane speed
@8-9 min mark, take 3rd and maybe macro hatch
Make infestation pit while making 5th & 6th gasses, while fully saturated at 3rd.
Pathogen glands when infestation pit completes
@31s Pathogen glands, begin infestor production

Build Strengths
- Crushes gateway unit heavy armies
- Zealots and sentries and high templar disintegrate to banelings
- Rediculously strong in midgame to lategame with proper unit control
- Allows for upgrades to "line up", causing units to be stronger at certain times than what they would be otherwise
- Allows for heavy droning at certain times
- When used with infestors, nothing escapes. Sounds cheesy now, but when you see it...
- Has a relatively standard 3rd base timing, finishing about the same time as 1/1, allowing for it to be more easily protected
- Makes it super easy to conduct two or three pronged attacks, due to overlord drops
- Allows for baneling or zergling drops on mineral lines

Build Weaknesses
- Can die easily to 6gates if not scouted and reacted accordingly
- Can die easily to stargate play if not scouted and reacted accordingly
- High templar can storm on lings or feedback infestors to demolish the army
- High templar or dts can transition into archons which do a decent splash damage against lings, and tank banelings well
- If not enough drones or hatcheries were made or are existing, then the build can be weak due to individual larvae efficiency

Replays & VODs
Just click download for the ZvP replays found here

The FXOSLoG vs mouzMorroW game from MLG columbus on testbug was casted by Husky, definitely worth a watch if you're still skeptical.

Day9's episode of "Steal This Build" on MorroW's ZvP.

Engaging
Heres a video from Psystarcraft on how to micro the baneling drops.

The lings can be attack moved, although its best to split them into groups for a surround beforehand. Infestors come in to fungal AS the banes are dropping. The key to a correct engagement with this unit composition is timing everything to hit the opponent's army at the same time.

Tweaking the build
After using the build against quite a few protoss opponents, I've found some parts of the build that can be changed. Feel free to take whatever ideas that may benefit you, and use it for your own game, but I reccomend trying the standardized build that I've posted above before you do so.

15pool/16hatch
I thought this was a much better variation for a while, but reassessing it, the 14pool/15hatch allows for an earlier expand, which helps if you havent been scouted yet on a larger 4player map. In that case, you can get your hatchery down before they even get a probe in position sometimes. So really, it depends on whether or not you think you can get your expand down, and it the extra drones are worth the wait for your lings to kill the pylon to get your hatchery down if it doesn't get placed initially. Personally, I think that its safer to go 14pool, due to the lings coming out earlier to kill the pylon.

Keeping a single drone on gas
This is a pretty cool way of keeping track of whether upgrades should be started or not. Instead of watching the timer, you are watching your gas count, which will also decide when you will be putting drones back on gas. Lately, I havent been so exact with the gas timings of the build, but I put two drones back on gas at about 40-50 gas and 40ish food (assuming at least 90% of that food count is drones, rest is 3 queens and 4 scouting lings), which is when I get my first evo and the next two gas. It helps, because if your opponent does something crazy like a cannon rush, that could potentially change the timings of the build, which would cause you to make mistakes later if you rely on the game timer. If you check the gas count.

Keeping drones on gas and getting upgrades sooner
Although I haven't experimented with this much, it could work fairly well to crush early game gateway timings from toss. Assuming you're still droning up effectively and not getting 3 gasses but staying on one instead, you can get your 1/1 ups faster and find it easier to deal with 6gates. Upgrades benefit your army in every engagement you have after the upgrades are done, so it clearly increases unit efficiency over the period of an entire game dramatically if the upgrades are earlier. Only, this build relies on having a huge economy to back up your units that you're constantly trading, so it might be counter productive to sacrifice economy, even if it is in the interest of better efficiency.

Expanding at 6 minute mark instead of 8-9 minute mark
Credit for this idea goes to Aquanda. Because the style is based upon having a huge economy to back you up, while you trade units constantly, it doesn't hurt to get a huge economy up as early as possible. Unless, of course, your opponent decides to punish you for it, but the catch is there are no extraordinary timings the protoss has to combat you making the expansion at this time. In my experience of it, its much safer than it actually sounds.

Don't make macro hatcheries, take more bases
This is another of Aquanda's ideas. You'll need a high larvae count for this build, but also a raging economy. So why not achieve both at the same time, and just take heaps of bases? It also works against protoss in the aspect of their low mobility armies, which will struggle to run all over the map, killing every single base. That can lead you pretty easily into the decision to just forcing a basetrade lategame, and never actually engage their army until you know you can instantly remax and that they won't be able to produce much of an army.

Going for Mutas instead of Infestors
Ultras or Broods are more lategame oriented, and you usually want either mutas or infestors prior to either of those units, so we'll leave those two units out of the question. I've been experimenting with mutas when you see your opponent go for a stargate opener, and I can safely say its pretty strong. You'll have your queens and spores to fall back on, and if you constantly bait the phoenix towards you, they generally won't succeed. Just remember to never chase the phoenix, it is a LOT harder on the protoss when they have to time it perfectly, and they don't even know when you're going to be changing directions.

Another good point to make is that collossus are often a transition from forge FE into stargates, because hydras are the usual answer instead of spire units. If you have a lot of zerglings made and go for mutaling instead of ling bane infestor, you can crush your protoss opponent if you didn't lose much while defending the stargate pressure. Just target the collossus down and try to keep your mutas as safe as possible. A good idea is to send your ling/bane in to tank shots from the stalkers, while your mutas handle the collossus. You can pretty much ignore any stargate units after the engagement, as more mutas will spawn eventually to deal with any remainers, which there shouldn't be many of unless you decided to throw banes into the mix, or any other gas heavy unit.

Final Thoughts
I think MorroW's ZvP performance at MLG columbus was insanely good for this style of gameplay. I've been a long fan of Aquanda's ZvP style, but to be honest, Im probably going to switch completely to this style so that my play is more standardized and so that the timings where my army is strong are very clear. If the protoss pushes in midgame to this build, and hasn't attempted to interrupt the droning of the zerg player prior to that point, it feels like its an autowin for the zerg player. Its a very solid build, as long as scouting is done correctly and no insane surprises are pulled out of the hat from the protoss player.

Similar ZvP Styles
Liked the information in this thread, but you are looking for something slightly different? Check out these links!

http://www.gomtv.net/forum/view.gom?...3&cid=0&kind=1
- Posted in a reply to this thread from pon, this is a variation that Nestea has used.

http://esports.gomtv.com/gsl/communi...sgid=14373&p=1
- Its all in korean, but at the top right are replays from various players using Nestea's build.

Translations of replay names (Which are the players who used the style):
풍선 -> Balloon
세렌 -> Seren
아토시스 -> Artosis (Yes, ACTUALLY Artosis)
파투 -> Paatoo
레인드랍 -> RainDrop

http://blip.tv/learn-from-the-pros-w...quanda-4819300
- This is where I originally learnt about the style, while I was struggling with standard ZvP. Its an episode of 12 weeks with the pros with mrbitter, before he uploaded the episodes to his youtube channel. Its yet again another variation of the build, using the earliest safe expansions possible and massing them up, so you can trade in army after army and get into a commanding lead.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=197338
- Replays from Aquanda against various players in a ZvP format. Good to see how the build fares against various builds.

Quick Comments

:

excellent writeup :)