DRONING:I cannot stress how important it is to build drones. You need a good economy if you want to win. Simply stated as such, you can't stop or forget to make workers. ESPECIALLY at the beginning of the game. Droning is the #1 priority. Not typing, or looking around the minimap, Droning. Sure, if you just made a drone and rallied the cocoon manually (This makes the drone go to the mineral patch slightly faster) you can focus on the exact spot your scouting overlord is going, or look around at the watch tower, but you MUST Drone precisely. I've seen so many games come down to that one second where one drone would have made the difference, whether it be meat shielding, or in terms of minerals for getting units out. Next Topic.
INJECTS:NesTea once said, "If you miss injects as a competitive Zerg, you will lose the game." This is almost always true at the higher levels of play, and if you want to get there, listen to NesTea. There's a reason why he is one of the top 3 Korean players. Now if you are a newer Zerg and you are missing injects, it is really no big deal. But as you progress, you will see the importance of it. A few strategies you can try to remember injects with are paying attention to the left side of the screen every so often, where it tells you what units have completed, what upgrades are done, as well as when an inject pops. Another fairly common strategy is to remember the time of the inject, and 40 seconds later, injecting again. Now on to HOW To hotkey queens/hatches to properly execute injects. You could set your hatch(s) at a specific hotkey, and have your queens all on different hotkeys. Then you double tap each hotkey, hit v, and click the hatchery. Another way is to have your hatches separate and do the same thing above, but instead go to the hatch, and then click on the queen to inject. Next Topic.
UNITS:My Protoss friend once played a game as Zerg against me and told me that we only had two cool units; Infestors and Mutalisks. To an extent, this is true. Hydras suck until Heart of the Swarm comes out and they aren't as slow as Motherships Pre 1.4 patch. (Kekekekeke). Ultras are also going to be awesome when HotS comes out, but until then, we will have to work with what we have. So in terms of Infestors, Go insane. They are THE most useable unit in the game. Infested Terrans, Fungals (Nerfed OFC), Neural parasite (Also Nerfed, OFC), There are so many options. You can deny so many bases, kill a lot of clumped units, and take out their most powerful DPS units until the fight is over. To be honest, I don't know why I never used Infestors in Bronze, Silver, or Gold league. Now on to Mutalisks. The scariest thing a Terran will ever see is 50 Mutalisks knocking on their door; Sadly, There is no such thing as four hundred supply, where 50 Mutalisks would be ok. Mutalisks are pretty much the only unit we have that can win games if you micro them like Jae Dong. By that I mean, If you have just lost all your bases but your main, and your Terran buddy is on 4 base ready to end the game, You could win with 30 mutalisks (as long as you can hide many expo's, drones, and queens :3). I've literally contained a Protoss so hard with Mutas, He just left the game before I even made any pokes with my Lings. This is after his 4 gate succeeded and killed my expo. This just goes to show the raw power of Mutas. If you see a Thor, Archon, or Infestors, STAY THE F@%# AWAY OR YOU WILL LOSE ALL OF THEM. Unless you can split your Mutas without multiple control groups (Another Jae Dong reference), You will lose against 5 fungals if timed properly. If you can magic box a Thor or Archon, Go for it. (Magic boxing refers to move commanding past the unit, then when you are directly over it, you hit the h or hold button). Next Topic.
SCOUTING:This is one thing I still need A LOT of work on. I have recently been doing a much better job doing it thanks to a few practice partners/master Zerg friends. Take the towers with Zerglings. No excuses. Zerglings are the most cost efficient unit in the game, a two for one (larvae) for 50 minerals. If he has a zealot there, Move 8 lings to kill it and leave one there. If there is an army there, take the tower immediately after you fight or after they back up. Don't only take the towers, send in a ling every now and then to see their army composition, or better yet, to scout expo's and maybe (If you are the luckiest Zerg on the planet) get past the front and all units to scout tech. If you see an opening where a base is not defended, Send 10 or so lings to kill workers there. Who knows, maybe he will plant his DT Shrine there?
. Another thing with scouting is overlord spread. There are so many maps with open pockets of space screaming, FILL ME WITH OVERLORDS!!! Overlord spread helps you spot drops, air harass, and even just unit compositions in general. Especially in ZvZ (Because Zerg sucks and doesn't have a tier 1 ranged unit that can shoot up), overlord spread is something you NEED to win. When your lair finishes, train yourself to get 2-3 overseers. One for your army, one for your bases, one for scouting. Changelings are almost always overlooked by low level players and not spotted. When you get to my level, its a little bit harder to use them to scout, but it is still possible. Burrow lings at expansions, use the overlords Spread creep ability to allow your creep spread to flourish, etc etc. Next Topic.CREEP SPREAD:Just like I said above, Overlords creep spread ability is pretty awesome. But the thing is, that isn't enough. Creep spread is a great mechanic that Zergs don't utilize like they should. Its very important for crushing Terran, Zerg, and Protoss armies alike. Oh, and did I mention that you need it to BUILD YOUR TECH?? DID I ALSO MENTION IT GIVES YOU VISION?!?! DID I ALSO MENTION IT GIVES ALMOST ALL OF YOUR UNITS A SPEED BOOST WHILE ON IT?!?!?!?!?! Ok, I think you get the point. Even with other factors, like stopping Protoss and Terran from building on it, its almost always the underlooked, unused mechanic that Zerg has. Surrounds on hellions, stalkers, as well as all armies are so much easier. It also makes Hydras NOT AWFUL!!! :O (Although they are still pretty terrible since there is no speed upgrade for them yet). Still though, Creep spread is easy, because of the fact that it almost perfectly lines up with injects. I'm not saying to over prioritize creep spread over everything, but just use it a little more, and you will see how cool it really is. Next Topic.
LARVAE:Spending larvae is simple. Make an attacking unit, or make a worker unit. That's all you can really do. Still, this ties in with injects about spending your larvae (Especially early game) wisely. Lets say you make 6 zerglings at the beginning to defend instead of 4. No big deal, right? Wrong. That is one more drone, which could be mining, making you more money for the long run. You honestly only need 4 lings at the beginning if your opponent is not pressuring you. Hell, I even go with 2 sometimes.
I would go further on this topic, but its 4:00 in the morning, and I want to sleep. I will go over one more topic and wrap it up.
EXPANDING:I am going to close this rant out with probably the easiest topic to cover, because if you do not know about it, then you are probably here wondering why you are losing all of your games. As Zerg, you use your drones to make buildings. Simple, right? But wait, that means 50 minerals are used every time, plus the cost of the building! Well that is ok because someone at Blizzard is bad at math and made our hatcheries cost 300 (+50 of the drone) minerals. That means... 350 minerals!!! Instead of 400?! THAT'S INSANE RIGHT?? Not really... But that is one factor that makes expanding in our favor. It is a lot cheaper than expanding is for Protoss and Terran. Also, it seems our larvae value is DOUBLED if you expand, as well as your mining room, as this doubles your mineral patches, gas geysers, and it also doubles your creep. Expanding is mainly the idea of Zerg because our production shows its true power in the late game. After rolling an army, I usually see a "Zerg OP" message from my opponent as more lings stream in, completely destroying them.
Final thoughts: Practice, practice, practice... If you haven't thought about one of these topics before that were mentioned above, try them out in game and see how it goes for you.
. Leave any questions as a comment and I will get back to you ASAP. Check out my stream at Twitch.tv/augphlosion and follow me. I usually cast tournaments, or even sometimes stream my games on ladder/practice with friends. Thanks for reading. Peace out.
