Disclaimer: I leave out ZvZ here on purpose. I think this is such a big topic, that it deserves its own blog post.

Under react and gg

This usually happens when I just follow my build order blindly and try to focus 100% on spending every larva immediately and also never run into supply blocks.

I don’t check if my second overlord covers all the space around my natural or I forget sending the following overlords along adjacent bases. When greeted by a bunch of cannons or a proxy-produced army, I know I could just write out “gg” and leave the game.

But most of the time I just try out anything to maybe turn this around. Sometimes I am even able to survive with a handful of drones, but even though my enemy was completely all-in, I am so far behind that the next cheese like Battle Cruisers or a handful of Void Rays just kills me before I can get out an appropriate response.

It also happens that I do scout a proxy indirectly. When there is no expansion the time my first Overlord arrives at the opponent’s natural, the play book says I should react with one spine. If I deal with a Terran I also fly my Overlord into their main to confirm it’s not just a pretty late Command Center on the high ground.

From there I either feel kind of safe because of the spine and continue droning or I start pumping units trying to prevent impending doom:

Overreact and gg later

I think the fear of overreacting is what sometimes keeps me from producing enough defensive units to actually survive early aggression. There have been quite some games where I could barely fend of an attack but had to rebuild nearly all my drones.

When overreacting with too many units I either throw them all away in a failing counter attack or just let them sit in front of my base, which gives me a false sense of safety for the mid-game. Since I am also feeing so much ahead I mess up my macro that I am opening either comeback windows for my opponent or make myself vulnerable for follow-up cheese.

Perfect response?

I talked about this with a srade, a GM on the unofficial /r/allthingszerg discord channel and got some good pointers I want to share.

So the usual setting is I am going 16 Hatchery, 18 Pool, 20 Gas as ViBE recommends for his basically gas less opener (First gas used for Lair + Roach Speed + Roaches). At around 2:00 I scout the missing extension at the opponent’s natural and the last 3 proxy Gateways and Barracks hit me with too many Zealots or Marines I could deal with at around 3:00. Just when my first 2 Queens and a spine crawler are finished.

• How to use that minute?
• Do I abandon my natural and try to survive on the main?
• Do I build more Spinecrawlers? Or non-stop Zerglings?
• Do I get Zergling speed now or do I put down an immediate Roach Warren?
• More queens?
• When to continue building Drones?

It depends. Any additional information or confirmation is helpful to put down the right measures. When I scout no expansion at the natural, I redirect my first overlord to take a pass across the main base. If there are also no or just one production building at the main, I can expect a full blown proxy all-in.

Sometimes I also see a late command center built on high ground that is just floating to the natural. I don’t panic here in gold league, because the reason why it’s late is probably bad timings and not other shenannigans that caused the delay.

Proxy Gateway all-in

It seems a safe bet against confirmed proxy Gateways is to put down 3 spines in the main base: One in the mineral line, one behind the mineral line and one on the edge of the creep. Then try to defend these with the drones without really engaging until Lings are out to help. It’s totally okay to abandon the natural. If the opponent goes for the natural Hatchery, there is way too much time to get a proper defense up in the main and win the game.

The goal is to get up a Roach Warren on one base saturation and enough roaches out to overpower the incoming Zealots. When the proxy production buildings are down, the game is basically over.

One base Void Rays

Keep producing Queens while macroing and put all queens into a control group after injecting. Connect bases with creep and let these queens build up transfuse energy. When the Void Rays arrive, focus fire single units and transfuse low Queens. If possible, move targeted queens back.

If the opponent fully commits to air, max out on upgraded Hydra.

Cannon rush

If we scout it before Cannons are up, it’s save to pull some drones. 4 drones per Cannon building is enough to keep them from finishing. To minimize micro effort I a-move my drones to the building Cannons and also send one drone to directly attack/follow each probe that is around.

If at least one Cannon is already up, I try to follow ViBE’s gasless defense:

1. Take 3 drones off gas and build 3 Spine Crawlers out of range of the Cannons.
2. Gather all Queens at the ramp (outside of Cannon aggro range).
3. Build Zerglings until Spine Crawlers are done.
4. Uproot Spine Crawlers and re-burrow them near the Cannons.
5. Box-select all Zerglings and Queens and a-move them into the Cannons.

Proxy Barracks

There are varians from 2 to 4 Barracks with or without bunkers. If it comes with bunkers, we usually see the bunker building first and 2 marines try to defend the SCV(s) building them. ViBE also builds 3 spines out of bunker range like in his Cannon rush defense and uses the same power spike to break the bunkers. Usually this is the moment where Terran cancels the rush, pulls back and floats home to secure a late epansion. Droning from here and falling back to the normal game plan should leave us ahead.

4 Barracks usually cannot afford bunkers, but can pile up Marine numbers pretty quickly. Here it’s do or die and I am still not sure about how much static defense helps more than pumping zerglings. The more spine crawlers I build the less Drones can support Zergling production, and we need to out-produce the terran who is pumping marines off his one base economy.

Conclusion

What struck me the most was this quote of srade:

I believe in lower leagues you can just always overreact and be fine probably.

I think he is right here. Especially in the lower leagues there is probably no transition out of a failed all-in that doesn’t put the defender so far ahead, it would be hard to still throw the game. There is a small probability for a follow-up all-in that is either way too late or way too week to do any real harm.