Violet's incredible ZvP
I've been watching a lot of Violet's stream recently and his play is very inspiring. I'm a plat zerg and I feel that a most of my losses to z and t are attributable to poor mechanics and basic nooby stuff, getting supply blocked, poor scouting etc. But many times during losses to protoss I feel that that I have been playing as well as I possibly can and that the protoss has just gotten the better of me through superior understanding of the game, timing attacks, composition, etc.
Watching Violet play against protoss has been particularly inspiring to me because of his style in that matchup and I thought I would post what I have understood so far.
Obviously, anyone at his level is not going to do the same thing every game, but the following is a build that I have seen him use over and over.
14 gas 14 pool ling speed/take 2 or sometimes all 3 drones off gas 4 or 6 lings/queen expo
violet will not hesitate to punish the hell out of a protoss that he thinks is being too greedy with an ffe or 3 gate expo at this point. He will build 16 or so lings and just sack them to try to get an exposed cannon or kill some sentries/force some forcefields to be used. If he thinks he can do more damage he will build more lings but he often will settle for some "guaranteed damage" here and go back to ...
drone like hell, get more queens. 3rd queen drops two creep tumors that he diligently pushes put some guys back in gas and take a 2nd gas If he needs to at some point here he will make an evo chamber to deal with void ray. He seems to prefer overseer to deal with dt tho. I'm not sure yet when his attack upgrades start.
This is where his play becomes inspiring to me. Around the time that many zergs feel that they need to get their 2nd expo (40-50 food), violet will get an in-base hatch, put his third queen to work on it, and get a roach warren. Then he will pump a lot of lings and about 5 roaches while taking his third. His timing against most two-base protoss builds is such that his roaches come out just as the protoss moves to deny the third. If the protoss went ffe then he usually sends mostly zealot pressure to deny the third, because he is expecting a two-hatch (not three) zerg to not have enough larvae to drone up while making enough lings to handle 6-10 zealots at that timing. But the in-base hatch means that he can get roaches and lings while droning acceptably. So he can defend the third with roaches, and have an absurd number of lings that, coupled with any failed aggression, give him complete map control. Also, the early 3rd queen creep spread makes his slow roaches more efficient at defending that third. Now he can drone comfortably and tech while denying the protoss third. Once his third is up and saturated, he will take a fourth but concentrate on producing fighting units before putting too many drones on the fourth base. If the protoss doesn't mount any successful harassment, Violet will max very quickly and take any opportunity to fight when the protoss leaves his base. He will engage in non-obvious situations (for example, large numbers of sentries with lots of energy, or 2-3 colossus vs roach only) just to prevent the protoss from moving out. That's something I struggle with a lot in my decision-making: I feel if I can't win a fight I shouldn't engage for fear of getting completely crushed, but violet will do anything to keep the protoss from taking the third and/or from building a max army.
Some of his other tactics (that I have seen) include mid-game muta against a heavily turtled two-base just so he can apply pressure in some way, corrupter/roach against large numbers of colossus, constantly sending groups of 16+ lings to harass mineral lines at the base he isn't engaged with, etc.
But the backbone of the success of his ZvP seems to me to be his macro hatch before 2nd expo into lots of lings and a few roaches. It gives him map control right when protoss expects him to be the most vulnerable and often leads directly to victory if he catches the protoss mid-map.
Anyway I'm curious what other people think both of my analysis and of the build in general. Am I missing anything from violet's ZvP that is crucial to his success? I'm not saying he invented this style but I haven't seen anyone else play it like this so consistently. I really like the idea of turning my most vulnerable moment into a strength. Are there any obvious downsides to this build that anyone has experienced?
Posted Dec 1, 2011, 11:42 PM UTC