Greetings, this is an addition to my recent reports on my games using zerg in an attempt to better understand how BW has changed the game. I have played vanilla for a while, and was mainly a protoss player, but am slowly learning the ways of the zerg, especially how they play in Brood War. I would appreciate any feed-back on my tactics for this game and any advice on playing zerg in BW. Without further ado…

Lizard gets a lesson in BW zerg…

I was in nohunters the other day and about to create another pubbie game to continue my series when I saw GhOsT~LiZarD advertising a 1v1. Eager to test my zerg skills against a decent opponent at least, I agreed and joined his game on the lost temple. GhOsT~LiZarD selected zerg, as did I, whereupon he asked "are you sure you want zerg?" I assure him this is the race I want, he talks about how he isnt that good at zerg and is practicing so that he can go random. With that and exchanges of good luck, the game is off!

The.Confessor

vs

GhOsT~LiZarD

I find myself starting at the 12:00 position, my least favorite spot for zerg as you can not take your natural and defend at the same time and if terran gets 3:00, your screwed as he can hit guys coming off your ramp from his main. I start to go with my usual BO of 8 Ol, 9 pool, 12 hatch leading to gas, but upon seeing him with my scouting Ol at the 3:00 position, I slap my ool down on 7 and send a drone to outside his base. I see his pool is also morphing, but am releived to see him hatch 3 drones right before it finishes. I am not so relieved to see 2 sunkens go up which cuts off any early rush I had planned. I decide to test his sunken placement, sending my 6 lings in to distract the sunkens and sending my drone around back his base to start a sunken on him. I can not evade his sunkens however, and end up canceling my drone, whereupon he makes one of the first comments of the game: "LOL" I decide that lizards cant talk so I need to put this mutation of what was once a graceful creature out of its misery.

I keep my OL stationed above his base and start pumping drones my newly built hatchery right next to my main one and start on gas. I see him plop down 2 hatcheries at his main, so I am guessing 3 hatch ling strat often seen in zerg vs zerg games. I decide I will turn the tables on him and make a lair and den as soon as possible while spending almost nothing on early defence except a well placed sunken surrounded by all my tech buildings and about 8 lings. Upon seeing my den go up, GhOsT~LiZarD moves his OL out of my base, allowing me to tech to my goal without him realizing it: LURKERS!

My den finishes and I pump about 6 hydras and wait for my lair to finish while I pump random drones and some more lings, as I see him pump mad lings from his 3 hatcheries and have his gas go up, moving my own OL out of his base when I see a spire start. My lurker aspect is halfway finished when I see him amass a huge force of lings outside my ramp, and I start to panick, as I am no where near ready to defend against an attack of that size. For some reason unknown to me however, GhOsT~LiZarD decides to wait on attacking for a while, allowing lurker to finish researching and morph two hydras to lurks. Once they are complete, I send out some lings of my own with lurkers trrailing, buying them time to burrow at my ramp. In about 5 seconds, his ling army goes from over 25 to 10, and he wisely escapes with his remaining lings.

Trying to maintain my temporary momentum advantage, I put up a spire, research hydra speed and place a hatchery at the bottom of my ramp in preparation to expand to my natural. I pump hydras and my spire is just finished when the expected follow up mutas show up over my main. Luckily I have a spore next to my lair, and GhOsT~LiZarD for some reason decides that he is better off focus firing on my spire in an attempt to halt my unit production then engage my troops. I send my hydras from my ramp to take out the mutas and pump a quick 18 scourges before my spire goes down. He escapes with two or so of his 12 mutas and I decide the time to strike is now. I gather a force off lings and 4 lurkers outside his natural and as I am dividing up my scourges into separate control groups of two, I tell him "I hate microing zerg :P" I then send in my lings with lurkers trailing behind, buying time for my lurkers to burrow. He has some mutas and a large force of lings as defence, but no immediate Ols around, so I select7 of my scourges and send them to take out some mutas while sending hydras at my base to help out. The lurkers meanwhile absolutely tear through the lings as +1 needle finishes researching, and I send my remaining groups of 2 lings into his natural, taking out any stray Ols, then into his main, where I manage to take down about 5 Ols before I am done. With the aid of some quick mutas and lings, he kills off the last of my attacking hydras and lings andI take the distraction to expand to my natural and set down another hacthery while researching ling speed, OL transport and range for hydras.

He drives my lurkers out from his natural with an Ol, so I regroup and send in a second wave of 12 hydras and3 lurkers, another spire beggining to morph. Once again the lurkers tear through his lings while the nowupgraded hydras focus fire on GhOsT~LiZarD’s mutas totake down a large number of them. As soon as his defenses are over run, I send the lurkers into the peon line in his drone line at his natural and begin to tear up drones while sending my hydras on Ol hunt for any that are straying around his natural. He once again finally drives me off and I realize that my lings patrolling the other 2 starting spots are gone and he must have an expandion up. I am about to send a force out to destroy it when I catch a sizable force of his gathering outside my mainconsisting if ling and mutas. I start making more scourges, burrow 3 lurkers at the bottom of my ramp along with some hydras and lings stationed. GhOsT~LiZarD first testes my defenseless natural though, killing it with mutas before quickly high tailing it out of there, then sends his force in front door. While he was smart enough to bring an OL along with him, he only brought one, and while my hydras engaged the mutas, scourges swung by, 2 taking out the Ol so my lurks had free reign and the rest taking out the last of the mutas. While this was going on, I rebuilt my natural and researched Ol speed.

Surprisingly qucily Ihave a secent force assembled, load up a lurker, lings and hydras into my Ols, set sone larva into scourges and drop his main. The lurker and lings beging to absolutely tear apart his main, while my large hydra force takes out his mutalisks. As my scourges hacth, and I send them onto patrol his main base for Ols, runninginto 3 or so, GhOsT~LiZarD remarks how he hates zerg. But then again we dont learn anything from winning all the time, right? Right? Down to only his expansion I scout with a pair of lings at 6:00 main,he offers a gg and leaves.

I was actually very happy withthis preformance as I had an INSANE cost effectiveness for a zerg. Final stats revealed I produced 188 units, killed 248 and lost a whopping 64. GhOsT~LiZarD made 298.

After game thoughts: Well, I am obviously still learning all the changes BW has in it, though I think I surprised him with my counter to his 3 hatch lings. The turning point of this game was when I sucessfilly fended of his follow up muta attack and only lost a spire out of it. However, I do believe that zerg is bar none his worst race, but am looking forward to playing against him when he is toss or terran. Thanks for reading, hope to keep learning more about BW as I keep playing, any thoughts on how I played zerg and things I could do to improve my zerg game??