[G] Belial's Comprehensive Guide to Everything ZvP!

- Zerg rules out 1 base all-in
- Zerg takes third and defends while Toss has map control
- Zerg gets map control
- Toss tries to take third against Zerg, defends
- Zerg tries to prevent Toss from moving out before Hive Tech by either harass, trading/aggression, or turtling.
- Toss pushes out with 3+ Colossi to kill Zerg before Broodlords

Standard ZvP opening these days is gasless 14 pool. There are a few reasons why this is standard:

1. It's safe against any cheese. Well, any pool or gas first is, but we rule out hatch first because a good cannon rush with double pylons in a good nook can occur and by the time the pool pops from hatch first, even if you get the pool quite quickly afterwards, Toss will just bank so much money that he can put down so many damn pylons and cannons that 6 lings and all your drones just can't deal with it. You can maybe try patrolling like 4 drones if you really want to go hatch first, but that would be behind 14 pool in terms of econ (also note, a Gateway Opener that reactively gets a Forge, will autowin against Hatch First too).

2. 11 pool is just as vulnerable to cannon rushes. You have to go 10 pool before overlord to really possibly get lings out in time to stop a cannon rush. Even if you go 11 pool, if Toss gets those 3 pylons up, he gets the cannon rush. So if you have to patrol drones, or pull drones, the same if you go 11 pool or 14 pool, you might as well go the more economic 14 pool. I repeat, an 11 pool will not get lings out to deal with a cannon rush or ramp block in time.

3. Speedlings are kind of useless against FFE. He's walled off. Yes, you might be able to pick off a probe easier, but you have total map control for 8 minutes with just 4 lings, so you don't need speed. If toss wants to get that pylon up, he's going to get it up anyways. And it just hurts your drone count too much.

4. Gateway openers just aren't popular. Zerg can generally go fast third as long as they rule out 4 gate, and then play as if it was FFE for the most part, so FFE is the more popular choice unless you know they are going gateway expand (eg close air spawn, crossfire). Even if they go gateway, you just grab gas asap and you'll be fine, or just plant a spine. Besides, even if Toss goes Gateway Expand, he will be so far behind that you will be way ahead anyways. Based on the odds, Pool First is the 'best' opener to flip your coin on

Note: I discuss 14/14 being the best build against 1 base Toss/Gateway openers, in the 1 Base Toss section

After going 14 pool, you'll want to patrol a drone at the ramp to stop ramp blocks. Toss throws down 3 pylons at 17 supply, so pull the drone at 16 supply.

You'll want to get that hatch at 16 supply, ideally. Since you will be pulling 2 drones to deal with the probe anyways (one to patrol ramp, one to follow probe), try micro'ing them to get the hatch down Idra style (if you ever saw his games before, he would do this and try to go hatch first). If not, just get those 4 lings out (you need 4 to deal with the pylon, if you just make 2, he can throw a pylon down and then you need to make those 2 lings and they just come out later to deal with it).

You can also take it at your third, but I don't like doing that because maynarding that far can really screw your econ. I would strongly advise against that - just wait for the 4 lings, Toss hurt himself just as much as your hurt by the delayed hatch by putting down that pylon. This is just my own personal preference though - many pros don't even bother with the natural and go straight for the third, and Toss can do something like add a Cybernetics Core to the pylon that would have made taking the Third a better choice to begin with. I'd say it really depends on the map, what Toss does or seems to be trying to do, and your comfort with it is.

Dealing with a Cannon Rush
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On 15+ Pools
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Standard Third timing is usually around 21-23 supply.

Also, if the map is imba enough to have gold minerals, consider taking it as your third (Antiga close spawn, maybe not, but Metal, always). In my very strong opinion, there's no way for Toss to win if you grab gold on that map vs FFE. They can't do any pressure that would be stronger against a gold than it would be against a standard hatch. Making a precautionary spine would be more than compensated by the huge income boost - it's more than just 20% more income, but an exponential increase due to how zerg's inject mechanics work, as the higher rate of income and drone production in early game quickly snowballs, and with the gold, it snowballs even harder (side note: MULEs beat zerg in short term, but over long term, inject completely surpasses it).

It's extremely important that you evenly distribute your workers amongst your bases. Literally, evenly distributing your workers amongst your bases is like getting a free few additional drones, and not doing it, limits you severely.

For example, 24+24 workers on 2 bases, is less income than 14+14+14 workers, even though it's full 2 base saturation with 48 workers vs 42 workers on 3 bases. And a good, strong, gateway timing, can really happen when you are practically even on workers with Toss. So the only way to win such a battle, is to have a higher income with equal harvester counts, by saturating properly. And if you don't saturate properly, you might as well just go 2 base lair because your income isn't much better anyways and just benefit from the lair. Or, you could learn to improve your game!

If you ever watch 1st person perspective of a pro player - you can see it in replays, but better seen watching streams - you will notice they obsessively box over, select all the drones, and look at, their mining bases. To the uninitiated, you might say "Wow Nestea spams his APM even in the lategame" or "No wonder MVP has such high APM, he just spams all game long and constantly is boxing over his workers". But no, that's not what they are doing. They know that it's extremely important to spread your workers evenly amongst your bases.

Okay, I'm sure you get it now. So how to do it? It depends on your 2nd base timing.

If you get pylon blocked at the natural, and wait until lings tear it down instead of taking another base, you should take half of your drones and send it to the natural. If you don't get pylon blocked, just rally all hatches to the newest hatch - you will actually have an increased income due to the drone's pairing up, and that maynarding in this game actually hurts your income for the most part (due to the mechanics of larva inject allowing you to quickly saturate a new base, and because you would prefer to have more money earlier, than more money long term, because the more drones you have earlier, the better for long term, more so than maynarding). You'll learn when to swap up the rally points, and you can balance things out by where you take gas or make buildings at. This is actually what most pros do, and you won't hit 80+ by 8 minute unless you actually rally correctly to new bases, as opposed to maynarding or not paying attention to worker saturation.

If you compare incomes of Z vs a P who maynards half his workers, you'll notice that you'll actually be ahead by about 200 minerals per minute if you rally instead of maynard. Maynarding in this game actually is not a good idea, unless you have more than 16 workers at the base you pull from. That's why you should rally instead of maynard, unless the new base is late (like if you get pylon blocked).

It's up to you how you maynard them specifically, but what's important, is that you OBSESS over this in the game. Seriously. You need to be balancing them out all of the first 9 minutes. Personally, I am constantly re-adjusting my worker saturations all throughout the game, and constantly re-moving 3-5 drones as I morph new buildings, take gases, et cetera.

As you play more and refine your build, you will get a feel for how to best rally your drones to get the most balance. But this is what I see the best macro pros do - rally drones, instead of taking workers from existing mineral lines.

When you take your gas is a big deal. If you notice you bank gas in your games, chances are you are taking gas too quickly, or too much gas. The standard gas timing tends to be 6:00, or right around when third finishes.

DRG, who seems to have the best macro I've ever seen of someone going fast third in tournament play, tends to take 3 gas after his third has been well established and droned up a bit. You can make 1 gas early, 1 gas late, but the idea is generally have 2 gas up by 7:00 at the latest (personally I feel the 1 gas early/1 late kind of cuts econ a bit too much at the critical early stage of the game, as it's what I did for the longest time).

If you like to go by supply, that means 2 gas is roughly taken around 50 supply.

Standard Roach Warren at 7:30 unless you see no gas (6:30) or 4 gas (7:30+), and Evo Chamber at 7:00+ unless you see no gas (not at all) or get a solid scout off telling you not to get it. These days Zergs don't seem to even get Roach Warren until Lair is done, or if Toss has no gas at the natural, and many will skip it if they see Toss isn't doing a gateway timing, or only make it if they see a possible gateway timing incoming. But, if you aren't so solid in your scouting and gamesense yet, you are better off making one always around 7:30. Make sure to get a 6:30 Roach Warren if Toss has no gas at his natural though, and make a few Roaches at least when it pops, as Toss is doing a quick warp gate pressure.

Evo chamber should be grabbed at 7:15 at earliest if you see gas at the Toss natural, and still aren't exactly sure what Toss is up to. Any earlier than 7:00 is too early. Upgrades won't finish in time to deal with any sort of gateway all-in (35evo+160upgrade= 3 minutes, 5 seconds, or 10:20 from a 7:15 evo). Initial stargate units are best handled with a queen or two, and additional spores added as necessary.

If Toss makes any sort of early zealot aggression, like double gate or gate/core/gate, you should get a Roach Warren at 6:30 (just like if you see no gas at his natural, as you likely won't see any gas at his natural if he does this), but rely on lings if he pressures earlier than that (this is because +1 won't be out on the zealots before 7:30).

If Toss does a hardcore, 6 gate +1/7gate/Huk style zealot heavy 8 gate, that cuts probes, and pushes out at 8:00-8:30 and potentially shooting your base at 8:50, you will pretty much autolose if you go for lair (obviously, if you are going 9:00+ lair, or basically lair after pumping units and knowing you can hold the push, that's fine, but the idea here is that a 6 gate +1 8:30 will kill you if you teched too hard). I'll talk about this more in-depth later, but basically, anything like roach speed or burrow will definitely not come in time to deal with such a push, if you simply don't die in the process, so this is sort of the benchmark we are looking at in regards to lair timing.

On a side note, it's great practice to play with a friend to keep 6 gate +1'ing you, as it's considered the heaviest all-in Toss can do from FFE, so if you can hold this all-in when going fast third, you can possibly hold anything (and thus, why fast third is standard vs FFE).

So lair timing is all about seeing gas at the Toss natural.

Zero gas = No lair (or rather, lair after you are sure you can hold the Toss push, and due to it's timing nature, you'll definitely know when you can be good to go lair)
1 gas = Generally, this is very standard play. Toss is going macro, so you'll want lair, but economy is the focus here. Standard Lair timing for Zerg going fast third is ~7:15
2 gas = Toss is doing an extremely tech heavy attack. So you can delay Lair, as you'll want to keep focusing on economy, as some Toss tech pushes will kill you if your economy is weak.

Getting lair at 50 supply or earlier (which means 42 mining drones basically) will hurt your economy too much. So even if you want to get lair very quickly, for whatever reason, make sure you get at least around 55 supply first. Going lair before 50 supply can hurt your drone count by as much as 10, so make no mistake it hurts your econ to get that lair.

Once you go lair, you generally want to grab gas to go with it. I would recommend you get a 3rd gas, as you will only be making roach/ling. Once you know what Toss is doing, or have enough to defend, get that 4th gas as you plan to get your lair tech of choice. Don't get your 5-6 gases until you absolutely know what's going, and have 60+ drones, and have run on 3-4 gas for a little while (getting 3-6 all at once, even if you are going straight to muta/infestor, will result in gas banking too quickly).

Generally, Toss warpgate finishes from FFE at 8:30+. So bear in mind, even if you see Toss go 4 gas, and getting a stargate and teching hard, you still need to make units at the 8:30 mark. How many units you make with how many drones you make, and how hard you tech up, is completely based on what you scout.

Standard Macro Hatch Timing is 8:00-8:30. You can delay this a little bit if pressure comes on right at 8:00 from a Zero Gas Toss, but otherwise you will need this quite quickly.

If Toss makes a stargate, that's a great reason to make a macro hatch (lings are better than roaches, and it means no super heavy pressure early on). Certain all-ins require the ling production from a Macro Hatch though, like Immortal/Sentry All-ins or Blink.

The most important thing to do when going Fast Third, besides making drones, and making that third hatch, is literally putting an overlord by the Toss natural's gas. Don't worry about Toss trying to fake you out - he needs to grab both gas in his main before his natural nexus finishes in order to start getting his cyber tech out (on a side note, if Toss doesn't grab doublegas in his main, that's usually indicative of FFE double gate before Core, which means heavy zealot pressure early on but much later warp gate and tech).

It's also extremely important to put at least 1 overlord by the Toss main. This is how I send my overlords:

Initial Overlord: Toss natural, or close air base. I check to make sure he doesn't go FFE 2 Gate and Core Timing, then to natural's gas.
9 Overlord: Spot my own natural for cannons, proxies, then to Toss main when nat pops or queen arrives (if he sends probe while you send out lings, he can sneak cannons there and that sucks).
15-17 Overlord: Directly above Third to spot for cannons
23-24 Overlord: Toss third/2nd Overlord to sac
32 Overlord: Where Toss tends to proxy pylons near your base
36 Overlord: Near Toss base to turn into Overseer if you sac 2 overlords into main with 3rd by gas.

Toss generally plants their tech direction at 5:45-6:30, so you want to see what's up at 7:00-7:30. At 7:00 is when you need to think to yourself "Okay, what is Toss doing?" Toss cannot simply just plant the tech after the 7:00 overlord that dies to a single sentry/stalker at 7:40 - by the time it finishes, you will have an overseer!

There are 2 things you are looking for when scouting the Protoss, and can basically identify 99% of what's going on - is his base empty or full of a bunch of gateways, and natural's gas. Additional factors like constant/not constant probe production, chrono on the forge or cybercore, stalker, sentry, or nothing made out of gateway at first, and intuition, can really nail everything else.

Drone Scouting
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Overlord Scouting
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Yes, the above section was just how to scout, not how to interpret what you scout. Here, I will break it down.

So the most important things are:
1. How many geysers did Toss take (and, how did he take them?) by 6:30?
2. Is there a bunch of stuff in his base, or did I see an empty base (you don't make 4 robos, so 'stuff' is always gateways)?

Since seeing the Toss gas count is what is most important, I will break this section down by how much gas you see, and how it's taken.

Note: Toss obviously needs 4 gas on full 2 base saturation, so eventually he will get all 4 gas. What I am talking about is the opening, ie gas count before 6:30. Also, I am referring to gas taken at natural, so '1 gas' really is 3 gas total.

Zero Gas
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Zero gas into 1 Gas
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1 Gas
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2 Gas
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Signs of DTs
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Finally, I strongly recommend making an Overseer when Lair is done, to see if Toss made 1-5 Gates for an Expand build, or 6+ Gates for a timing, so you can identify if you are safe to start teching immediately, and even cut corners like skipping roach speed.

If toss does not take a Third by 10:00, he's definitely doing some sort of all-in, although all all-ins will push out before 10:00, so if you aren't sure what Toss is doing by 10:00, I'd recommend throwing down some spores and making an Overseer or two at home! You should be able to tell what Toss is doing though, based on his posturing - much like 3 gate Sentry Expand will put a pylon on the low ground and have his units at his ramp, a Toss will have a probe, pylon, and his units near his third by 9:30 if he plans to expand. By 9:30 though, Toss should have taken his third or pushed out, so you should know what Toss is doing pretty quickly. If there is no third by 9:30, you should be very alarmed.

After 8:00-8:30, you will need to start pumping speedlings - even a Fast Third from Toss can do +1 Zealot pressure that can be threatening if you don't have a large chunk of speedlings. However, do NOT make any roaches until you know that Toss is all-inning or pressuring - they will seriously delay your tech, and you always want to be more Ling heavy, instead of Roach heavy. You really only need 10, maybe 20 roaches, at most, against the most dedicated, latest, and strongest of all-ins, and only after they've warped in multiple reinforcements - it's much better to be Ling heavy, not just to keep your economy stronger and tech quicker in the case of a macro game, but also because Lings are the real damage dealers.

As for engaging, always, always, always set up a flank with at least your lings, and grab some of the roaches during the battle to focus fire important targets that a few of them may be in range of (Sentries, Immortals, units with low HP). Toss all-ins also tend to hit before Lair is done.

6 gate+1/7gate/zealot 8 gate
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4 gate +1 8:00 timing pressure
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Single Stargate
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Blink All-in
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Immortal/Sentry
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Double Stargate
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Anyways that's most of the scary stuff. If Toss is on 3 gas, there's lots of standard plays he can make - 5 gate robo, 5 gate twilight, et cetera. This guide is just about the opening!

The rest of the game basically will go like this:
- Get map control, delay Toss third
- Keep Toss from moving out with a deathball before you have hive by harassing/trading/turtling
- Get Bl/infestor, win

If you go roaches, you will need to smash Toss' army as soon as maxed to lower his deathball size so you can get Broodlord safely (my preferred way to play this style is roach/banerain/infestor, but this style is what roach/hydra basically was). If you go the muta route, you use mutas to contain Toss on 3 base while teching to BL/Infestor once Toss has his third up and a sizeable army. If you go roach/hydra/corruptor, you need to be hyper-aggressive and trade over and over and deny the third forever (works less on maps with chokes). Finally, you can turtle Stephano-style by splitting the map with 40+ spines and quick mass infestors to fast-track to hive.

Since going Fast Third is all about how many drones you can make by 8:00, it's important to benchmark yourself if you want to improve. You'd be surprised to learn, that anyone who isn't High Masters, just does not make drones. They don't. They're macro is complete garbage.

Don't believe me? What your replay. Do you *ever* have idle larva before the 8:00 mark? Do you ever have more than 200 minerals? Yes? Then that's a problem. Also, please tell me what supply you hit. Because unless you hit at least 65 supply, then your macro is complete garbage. You have to hit at least 70 supply. Note - I said 70 supply, not drones (that's impossible, you will have at least 10 of that supply tied up in larva at 8:00). Even if Toss pressures you and you had to make a lot of units, you should still hit 70+ supply (only excuse is a cannon rush attempt at the start).

So. What do people get?

DRG, who has the best macro in the world, from what I've observed with this in mind, consistently hits 80+ supply!. That's just beast. Bear in mind most masters struggle to hit past 60, and diamonds barely leave 50. It's rare to see any other pro hit 70+ in tournament play, and I consistently see Code A 'scrubs' below 70. The ones who hit 70+, are almost always the usual suspects of top tier players, or macro players - Idra, DRG, Nestea, Stephano. DRG is the only person I've seen hit 80+, and as high as 83, in a tournament game.

Nestea usually hits 65, although he has hit 70 plenty of times.

Losira, 65. Idra, usually passes 70 (he's really impressive macro wise actually).

You need to hit at least 60 to be 'in the game'. If you can't get past 60, you have serious macro deficiencies, and you really want to strive to hit at least 70.

If you are having trouble, first, check your gas timing. Are you banking more than 200 gas at any point? You should only have about 100 gas total mined at the 7:00 mark, at most. If you are getting more than that, you need to work on your macro.

If you get supply blocked a single time, that usually cuts your supply count by about 10. Literally, a single supply block is like losing 10 drones for free. It hurts that much. If you make an overlord at 46/52 instead of 50/52, that cuts your drone count by about 2-3 each time. Don't make overlords too early, and until you hit around 50+ supply, you should *never* have 2 overlords being made at the same time unless one is about to die (eg sac'd overlords). Making 2 overlords at once, costs you about 3-4 drones by the 8:00 mark. So it's not just supply blocks that you need to avoid, but you need to learn to make overlords on time, not too early not too late (I find that most people make the 52 overlord way too early, like at 46).

After 50+ supply, a lot tends to go on, and you are probably losing an overlord as a sacrificial scout. A lot of pros tend to make 2-3 overlords at once at 50+ supply, because you will have 3x injects popping off. 54+3x8=78 total. The way with it working with 3x larva injects popping off, making 2-3 overlords at once at 50+ supply/7:00+, is a great way to go from the 50's to 70's from 7 to 8 minute.

It's a hell of a lot easier to hold a blink stalker all-in with 65 drones instead of 55 drones. Chances are, if you have games where you go "wtf Toss just masses a huge derp of stalkers/units/etc and wins", check your supply at 8:00. If you aren't past 60 supply, you've pretty much already lost the game, really. If it's in the 50's at the 8:00 mark, I don't think it's possible for you to win unless the opponent is just as bad or is similarly behind (eg failed cannon rush).

After about 30 supply, you need to be extremely aware of when you ever start an overlord, and how many overlords you have morphing. Making an overlord when you already have an overlord making can cost you about 2-4 supply, so it's really, really, important that you know whenever you start that overlord. By doing this, you will also be aware when you need to make overlords. You should also have your overlord timings mapped out to at least 60 supply (17, 23, 32, 36, 51, 55!), and understand what each additional overlord does (so at 54/54, 2 overlords is +16, so that would put you at 70!).

It is definitely possible though, to hit 70+ supply as a non-pro player, and I've even hit 80+ supply a couple times on ladder (it's rare, I can assure you that much). However, I consistently hit 70+ these days, with a good mind on macro, and I can assure you, everything from all-ins, to pressuring, to macro games, are much, sooo much easier, when you hit 70+ supply than if you are muddling at 62.

As I stated above, you never want to start Roach production until Toss pushes out with pressure. Lings are the core for dealing with Toss all-ins, and are 'free' in the sense that they will not delay your tech. Doing something like making 20 +1 Speedroaches against a Toss who actually going for a Fast Third, will get you killed, in that your Infestors, Hive, will just be too late. If Toss is going for a macro game, you may even want to totally skip Roach tech, if you can identify it early enough. Against Quick Third Toss, you should have Broodlords in time if you skip Roach Tech, and fast track to Hive, and 30+ Spines asap, if you want to play the macro game.

Once you've defended your third, you should regain map control as your economy has kicked, you have enough tech (roach speed, upgrades, etc), and your exponentially increasing rate of production has surpassed Toss. What you goal should be, is making the least amount of roaches necessary. ~20 Roaches should be enough to defend most pushes (of course, with ling support, but lings cost no gas, meaning faster hive, so they are 'free' in the sense that they don't cost you time).

Of course, you can be aggressive and make more roaches to deny the Toss third, but your plan should never be to straight up win the game with roaches alone (however, it's okay to be opportunistic). It's extremely all-in to max out on roaches, although there are definitely great times to do this, such as holding early pressure or knowing Toss is far behind or being too greedy, or the map favors it (wide open natural, for example). You generally want to avoid going max roaches, unless you see a sure-fire vulnerability in Toss. If you max roaches, and Toss doesn't die, and gets his third in reasonable time, you may die to a colossus based push simply because you won't have the tech to deal with it.

However, it's not to say that maxing roaches is easy for Toss to deal with, and many pros have made a name for themselves by maxing roaches and ending the game there (or at least delaying the third long enough to get a huge lead).

Eventually, Toss will get either enough blink stalkers, sentries with stargate support, or immortal/sentry, to take their third, so it's important you understand when making more roaches won't delay the third any longer. All you want to do is keep Toss honest. If you want to continue aggression, consider going with lings instead of roaches so you aren't costing yourself time.

So you really want to throw down your 'tech of choice' as soon as you know you are safe to hold Toss aggression, and have map control, to move towards the late-game.

I have talked largely about defending your third, but now I will move on later into the game. The following is how to play the game once you have defended against Toss or see him posturing for his third. You can also switch between the following playstyles (mass roach into muta, or hydra into muta, or muta into infestor).

Delaying Toss push with harass (Muta)
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Delaying Toss push with trading (Roach)
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Delaying Toss push with turtling (Infestor)
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If toss goes for a Third, you can instantly take the game to lategame! A Toss taking his third gives you free pass to fourth, infestation pit, and eventually hive, as well as skipping Roach tech if Toss did not do a 2 base opening. You can also play mid-game aggression as well.

The checklist for Zerg lategame is as follows:

• Fourth (and soon, 5th)
  
• Infestation Pit, Hive
  
• Double Evo
  

The end-game goal for Zerg, is pure Broodlord/Infestor (gone are the day of a huge roach army with just 5 broodlords, or broodlords with hydralisk support). I'd recommend at minimum, 5 bases for BL tech, so as soon as Toss takes his third, you will want to take a fourth and a fifth quickly afterwards.

I would recommend double evo melee/carapace upgrades, as broodlings are the real damage dealer. The many queens you made to inject your hatches are great for support, and if you didn't mass spines before, now is your time. Just make sure you ALWAYS have 70+ drones - if you cut too many drones for spines or more broodlords, you will just get crushed by a counterpush if Toss can push you back, like a threatening mothership.

Tactics
Get NP later on, really just for motherships. If you can be lucky enough to snag a NP, you win instantly. However, my preferred method of dealing with Motherships, is having 6+ Corruptors with upgraded air - Corruptors take down motherships insanely fast with Corruption (which is far from a useless spell, go test it yourself and see), especially with FG keeping the Mothership from getting in range of the Broods, and IT spam under the broods as well to keep the mothership at bay. Ground units will focus on the Broodlings and IT/Broodlords before the Corruptors.

I don't find spreading broodlords that useful - you only have what, 10-15 broodlords at most? So getting a vortex on just 5 broodlords is enough to completely screw you over. But of course, you should spread. I like to move command my broodlord army past where I'm headed, and use hold position when I want to attack, to keep them spread out (like siege tanks), so if he vortexes the front, the back 10 broodlords will rain down the pain.

Whatever you do though, you need to be extremely careful against motherships. Always have some energy on your infestors, and always pull back before the mothership gets in range to vortex you (9 range, by the way!).

You also need to make a good 5+ overseers when mothership comes out. I like to add a few of them to my infestor control group, and a few to my broodlord control group. You should be spamming changelings all the time as well - not to put in his army, but to spot where his army position is. Put them all over the place in front of his bases, so you can know where his army is located at all times (or rather, know where his army is *not* at, at all times). Changelings are sooooo awesome in lategame, they really are. It's like a ling burrowed in front of their base, but free, and you can make a million of them.

Make sure to add spines and spores in a Sim City around your most important piece of tech, the Greater Spire - adding Evo's around it also is not a bad idea. If you add a 2nd Spire for upgrades, make sure to put it far away from the original Spire, for insurance reasons.

Ultralisks in ZvP
Symbol and BbongBbong have been 2 Zergs who are big proponents of using Ultra/bane in ZvP. The idea with Ultras is, if Toss goes for a third, instead of massing spines, you get Baneling Speed, NP, and Ultras asap. If Toss does a 3 base 3+ Colossus push asap, you should be able to crush it with the Ultras breaking forcefields for the banes to wreck everything. This is perfectly viable, and the ultras are a sort of 'tier 2.5' unit before broodlords. The upside is this gives you a chance to break Toss with aggression, but the downside is that if Toss goes fourth, templar tech, he will be much more prepared against the eventual broodlords. Check out this thread on Ultras in ZvP (Symbol Style) for further discussion.

Extreme Lategame
In Extreme lategame, you will need a second spire, and you should get +3 Missiles for Infested Terrans as well. This stage of the game will focus a lot on Toss harassing you with SpeedPrisms, and how well you can Sim City/Spine/Spore your tech and future bases. If you massed spines in the mid-game, re-root them to new bases as frontal attacks are less of a concern once a large BL fleet is up. If Toss goes for Carriers or Void Rays, its very important that you focus on upgrades, and have a few Broodlords to deal with Storm so that Corruptor/IT Army can trade efficiently.

We've all played games where we were way ahead of Toss, held their stupid crap, BM'd the crap out of them, and then lost to some derp like mass void rays or pure colossi or an archon toilet or DTs. So how to avoid that?

DTs
When Toss is on 3 base, get a spore and 2 spines at each base. If you are ahead, you should do this quicker. Desperate Toss will always try DTs before leaving the game.

Warp Prism Harass
2-5 spines in smart locations, like next to buildings or in mineral lines, should stop Warp Prism play. Add on spines and spores as the game goes on or warp prism play increases.

Mass Void Rays
Well you should have queens early on. A single stargate won't get enough out quickly, to kill you, and should be obvious by lack of gateway units or gateways in his base, and lots of gas taken. However, your goal should be to eventually kill those goddamn void rays - especially if you defended a double stargate all-in. If you let him build up a critical mass, you can lose. Be aggressive once you have that macro lead and your anti-air units out, and kill them off if he's massing them. If you have a lead, it's okay to be cost inefficient.

The ETA Concept
This is a big one. You can read about it here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=300184

This is not some ambiguous thread. It's extremely useful. If you are on 3 bases vs 2, or 5 bases vs 3, your "E" is good. Now, work on on Tech and Army. If you lost a stupid game even though you were way ahead in econ, check the army values when you lost the game. Chances are, you were way behind in army value, and 1k less in roaches will never beat a higher value army of colossi, +3 upgrades, etc.

Basically, once you've secured your third, and held off that Toss aggression with such a huge lead, you no longer need to focus on your econ. You already have more bases. You don't need more drones, especially once you've reached 70. You need to match what Toss is doing. Match your tech, to his tech. Match your army, to his army. With a higher econ, but even army and tech, there is no way to lose. Too many times, people lose because of their 6 bases vs a 2 or 3 base Toss, because they only have roaches against sentry/colossi/blink/upgraded deathball. Unless you have lots of mutas and Toss doesn't have 3 bases with HT and lots of blink stalkers, you will never beat colossi without broodlord tech.

Once Toss makes the move toward more econ, then you can get that 4th, or 5-6-7 bases. Just because you aren't growing your econ, doesn't mean you aren't growing. Tech and army are also great ways to 'expand'.

Never go below 70 drones in lategame
A pure broodlord/infestor army, with 70 drones, and a few queens, really ends up to be like what, 10-15 broodlords, and 10 infestors? It's kind of tiny. But when you start making spines, and not replacing them with drones but instead more bl/infestor, you leave yourself vulnerable. 70+ drones is good, but if you are at 60ish drones, you will just get rolled by a counterpush if you don't win, and it's simply not worth 3 more broodlords for a much lower income that won't be sufficient to remax on t3 units. The easiest way to lose, is to max out on bl/infestor, and have only 60 drones because you wanted more broodlords. You won't always win with the broodlords right away - the game may drag on, toss may push back because of vortex or you not having infestor energy or sniping bases with mobile units. So ALWAYS make sure to replace those drones, so you always have 70+ drones!

There's nothing wrong with having 90 drones and losing your smaller bl/infestor army, and then remaxing very quickly behind mass spines to buy that bit of time, but it will cause you to lose way too many games if you have only 60 drones. It takes a long time, and a ton of money to remake bl/infestor. Don't let the super supply efficient Toss army get a chance to win if he gets a slightly lucky engagement. Leave nothing to luck. With 70+ drones, you can always trick out a 220/200 army anyways. This is a huge mistake of lower level players.

Respect the Mothership
Yea, so you were on 4 base while toss was on 2. You crushed his army multiple times. But eventually he got 3 bases and a mothership. Be careful. I've already explained how to deal with motherships, but you really need to respect it. It's okay to lose 5 infestors to get that NP+Vortex off, or snipe it with mass corruptor. It's not okay to lose a 1/3 of your broodlords to a vortex because you got too aggressive or didn't manage your infestor energy.

Don't Max on Roaches when you have an Advantage, Don't Remax on Roaches
You just got your army crushed without making a dent in his army. Whatever you do, don't remake an army that is going to be slightly weaker or smaller than what was exactly just gotten crushed.

Or, you have a lead and total map control. Don't max out on roaches, it's very all-in. Your hive tech will be too late, and your max roach army will just be dead weight for 20 minutes because Toss secured his third, finally, and you can't just attack hard with them because if you lose them, you lose your map control. Be smart on remaxing. If you lost the game, you lost the game, but don't max out on roaches. They are a tier 1 unit. Robotech rapes roaches, and you can't break down a brick wall - eventually, Toss will be able to secure his next base. Just as you can't always defend a base and it may be smarter to just let the base go and keep your drones and units, you can't always deny a base. The game will be even, secure your lead without resorting to desperate play.

I get that max roach can bust a toss being too greedy. I'm not saying don't go mass roach as a strategy. What I'm saying, is if you have gained a lead, maxing roaches is the easiest way to throw it away and, remaxing on roaches after you failed to make a dent, is a terrible idea.

Deathballs
This stuff is obnoxious, I know. But it simply doesn't work at the higher levels, largely because of macro. If you are losing to deathballs, a big reason may be because of your macro. Check on it. Maybe your macro is better than the opponent, but is your macro good enough is the real question. But hey, we all don't macro well... so. The ETA concept is also a large part of this - if you maxed on roaches, any sort of deathball play will crush you if you don't kill him before he gets 2+ colossi.

Mutas are a really good hard counter to deathball play. Seriously consider mutas if Toss is going for deathball play. If he opened stargate, it's okay - mutas are better than colossi more so than phoenixes are better than muta/corruptor. Just have a few corruptors in your muta control group, or if Toss has only 4 phoenixes, don't be scared to stomp it with your 15+ mutas. If he has colossi, he won't have many phoenixes.

If Toss is doing a 2 base deathball play, mutas really are the best answer (after using corruptors, or maybe hydras, to take down mass phoenix). If he is doing a 3 base turtle deathball, you can jack up your roach/ling army you made to deny the third long enough to get mutas out, or mass roach and just trade with his colossi right when the 1st or 2nd one pops and sentries, hard enough that you can fast track to broodlord tech.

But really, the 2 answers to deathball derping, is mutas, and macro'ing well (as in, having the econ to be able to mass roaches to stomp his 4 unit army).

Massive Stalker balls, Immortal/Sentry balls
These armies need to be nipped in the bud early on. You can't just drone up, and then let him come to you and defend - you need to build up your army, and attack his army while it's small, or push back when it's still small. Eventually your rate of production will overwhelm such armies. If you are losing to this kind of play, chances are your macro is weak, or you waited far too long to make units.

Secondly, don't be afraid to go mutas (as long as you know for sure his initial pressure is over and he has to back off because your roach/ling/hydra army is large enough). Blink is okay, but he'll need storm eventually, and mutas will always beat stalkers in a base trade. As for immortals, they are costly. While they aren't as costly as colossi, they are costly. Mutas will do fine against them.

Toss may go with a build other than FFE. I will cover that here, from 1/3g expands to cheeses.

Against any sort of gateway opening though, you will want to get ling speed asap. Throw down a gas as soon as you realize he's going gateway instead of forge. You need speed to check his army, his expo timing (or lack thereof), and to defend any sort of pressure/all-in, and maintain map control to take your third against gateway expand. I recommend you remove all 3 drones off gas after speed (you want minerals to bank up for that third, and you can get enough roaches quickly by just putting 3 in gas when you place down warren).

As long as he makes a core instead of 2 gate, you will want to get drone up hard to 30-35, and check with a speedling to see if he expands, and an overlord into his main unless it's completely obvious with your ling that he's going 1/3g expand (pylon on low ground, signs he wants to take an expand, and 1 zealot and 2-3 sentries).

Why 14/14 is the Best Build vs 1 Base Toss
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Scouting 1 base Toss
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(Proxy) 2 gate
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4 gate
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4 Gate Robo
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1 base DT/SG Openers
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3 Gate Stalker
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Gateway Expands
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I think all of these all-ins are outdated by now, and Toss largely knows how to hold them.... In the lower levels I think you can always make these work though, and even at higher levels, you can work if Toss just goes one way as opposed to another or doesn't react perfectly. These are all of the all-ins I know of, there isn't really any all-ins that are standard in the metagame at the moment.

Early Pools
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11 Pool
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3 Roach Rush
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Ling/Bane all-in vs FFE
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20 Roach Warren Roach All-in vs FFE
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35 Roach Warren Roach/Speedling All-in vs FFE/Gateway Expand
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Zenio's 3 Hatch Baneling Bust vs FFE
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2 base Slowling Nydus
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2 base Spinecrawler Rush
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2 base Hydra All-in
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2 base Muta
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2 base Infested Terran Timing Attack
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11 Minute 200/200 Roaches
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Hey Belial88, who are you?
I'm a Mid-Masters Zerg on NA who's trying to climb up the ladder. I actually try hard to not watch VODs, reddit, tournaments, or TL, because I've found if you really want to improve as a player, cutting down on this stuff and instead really putting forth an effort to play as much as you possibly can (oh you have 20 minutes before work? You're tired from work and want to surf the internet for a few minutes before bed? the girlfriend is still getting ready to go out? PLAY, PLAY, PLAY!). However, I work over 60 hours a week, have a girlfriend, and a little bit of a life, which often leaves me in a place where I can't play, but I can post.

I've already graduated university with a degree in Economics (you can't be an Econ major and not be a conservative - although I'm a proud Republican, I'd definitely say I'm libertarian [it's the Grand Ole Party because we have room for everyone] and an atheist [however I love christianity, I think it's a force of good and protestant countries always turn out well), love ice cream, and kind of a bit of a jerk, but in a fun way. I've traveled a lot, and definitely spent a lot of time in bad places, from living in the ghetto and seeing people die (I'm not claiming to be particularly poor, just where the really nice apartments for cheap were - jk, sort of), to having traveled to third world countries (I don't think you can hate capitalism, or really respect all cultures, when you've been to certain parts of Africa).

I don't think anyone dislikes me after they talk to me - I really take things impersonally, and never find anything offensive. However, my comments aren't always taken with the same attitude, so naturally a lot of people dislike me. That, and I am a lower level player, so naturally I say a lot of stuff that is just plain wrong, but I'm humble enough, don't take myself seriously at all, and completely aware that I'm a scrub, that I actually want to be called out, so I can improve.

I'm sure I come off as disrespectful, but unless I say a blatant ad-hom, I don't mean to be. I'm the kind of person to always ask why, no matter who it is that at the moment, I don't understand. I'm never satisfied with an answer without a reason (which is why my posts tend to be long-winded, I answer things as I would want them explained).

Hey Belial88, why did you write this awesome guide?
Too much shitty content on TL Strat. In particular, a 'comprehensive guide to zvp fast third' was posted by swooozy, someone who is now permabanned. I called him out for having a completely terrible guide that had a lot of misinformation in it, and although most people agreed, even with the rough tone I used, some people actually thanked him, as if bad content was better than no content. Also, I tend to basically write guides as responses to people's questions, and if my posts were put together, they could be organized guides themselves.

So now I can just link this guide to answer questions (even advanced ones, or ones that are complex). I had always planned to write one, but the swoooozy guide pushed me to actually do it.

Hey Belial88, how long did the guide take?
As it was a guide to Fast Third only, maybe 5 or 6 hours? Editing afterwards, another 3 or so hours. The big update that just happened, maybe 8. Replay/Vod section, which is arguably the most important part of a guide, is generally the longest, and also why I take so long to come out with new guides. I constantly save vods/replays that I think have value in a future guide.

Hey Belial88, I'm just starting out, any tips?
Focus on your macro. When you are below Masters, you don't really realize how horrible your macro is, so you may want a higher level person to analyze it for you, and you can never underestimate how important it is, because if you just macro 'okay', not good, but 'okay (avoid ever being supply blocked, don't bank 400+ money ever, never have a lapse of more than a second in idle larva or worker/unit production), and understand basic scouting (did he expand or not, does he have a lot of basic army/macro or could he be teching?), you would just simply skyrocket to Diamond (with a slight improvement, maybe a minor understanding of the game as anyone would have by diamond, then you would be masters soon enough). All of the goofy, late strats and attacks you see below masters, all become unviable as good macro simply hard counters them (3 void rays at 11:00? u leik 170/200 roaches?).

When you are above Masters, you realize how shitty your macro is. Especially if you play against a high masters or GM - you really don't appreciate how good a pro player is until you play one once you are at a level where you can execute basic macro. The efficiency they make a single unit have, is ridiculous (below masters, it's unanimous that people just hurt themselves every time they macro or attack because of lack of multi-task, let alone macro).

Just... watch some basic pro games, and try to make your games look like that. There is something wrong with you, if you are playing a TvP, and you are going 3 rax with tech/tech/reactor, or if you are zerg and grab more than 1 gas before 45 supply, or you are Toss and do any opener besides 1/3gate expand or FFE (besides all-ins). If your game doesn't resemble what you see pros do today, something is wrong. You can at least execute a similar build that takes gas and expansions and production buildings at similar times.

Hey Belial88, where do you plan to do next?
Probably a ZvT guide, then ZvZ guide. ZvT is very straightforward to me, I feel a guide on that would be really quick and easy to do (it's by far my best match-up, but I win it so often against people on ladder I rarely think about it, if that makes sense), and there are still some kinks I'm trying to sort out in regards to strategy in ZvZ. I may also start streaming soon, but the schedule would not be regular at all, and I just moved in and got internet that has more than .6mb up (it's about 3.8 with this xfinity).

Hey Belial88, anything else?
Thanks NrGmonk to changing title. Thanks to UCSD SC2 for letting me know how shitty I am, I was quite unaware. I'll be high masters soon enough. You can post this on your facebook page too you know. Anyone else can copy this too, as long as you give credit to Belial88@TL. If you want to contact me, PM me. Don't message me on B.net except to say how much you like me. If you want to thank me, for anything I do, do it in public so everyone sees how awesome you think I am.