Ultralisks or brood lords

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Ultralisk or Brood Lords?

So far, Zerg games have been (let's ignore ZvZ for the moment) relatively straight forward.  Defend from any harass the Terran or Protoss might throw at you (Vikings, Phoenix, Reapers,  Immortal pushes), expand and macro up your Hydralisk/Roach army and try to out expand your opponent.  Throw in Infestors and sneaky Nydus Networks+Lings and you've got your opponent throwing all their resources into their ground army, trying to wipe out your main army as well as your expansions.

But so far, that Hydra/Roach combo has been working well for the Zerg.  I'm going to go ahead into the future, a time when SC2 is so evolved that Hydra/Roach won't be sufficient enough to hold out against the Protoss/Terran ground army.  A time when *hold for suspense* Zerg needs to use Tier 3 units!

So which direction should we go?  The greatest meat shields ever, the Ultralisks?  Or the ranged destroyers, the Brood Lords?  Well why don't we look at the math first.

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Zerg upgrades (vs. zerg)

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Zerg Upgrades vs Zerg

Finally, the last Guide detailing Zerg upgrades vs  Zerg. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this match up, it's a fairly Roach heavy match up, while both players expand and add on Hydralisks.  Zerglings are great in numbers early on, but against a Zerg with enough Roaches, Zerglings end up mulched. 

Banelings are even rarer (though not horrible as a rush), since they require another tech tree, and are horrible against Roaches.  Mutalisks only seem to work against beginners, as teching spire takes up a lot of gas, leaving you unable to defend from the enemy Roach army (and unlike BW's Mutas vs lings, Mutas take a lot longer to kill Roaches).

As always, I am only discussion Level 1 upgrades, because any benefit you gain is cancelled by your opponent's Level 1 upgrades (with the exception of the Roach, more on this below), and the benefit is re-gained when you reach Level 2 before your opponent. 

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Extractor trick - getting an extra drone

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This is a relatively simple Zerg technique, seemingly obvious yet very few use it, and easy to implement in the game. You know how you spend Drones on buildings rather than drones building them? You can use that to your advantage in very early game as a Zerg player. 

You start out with 6 drones and 10 supply (to be replenished with Overlords). On your 9th or 10th Drone, you get either your Spawning Pool (called "9 Pool", "10 Pool", early Pool) or get an Overlord. Getting more Drones is not an option till you get your second Overlord, and you certainly cannot have 11 Drones immediately before getting that second Overlord spawned. OR CAN YOU?

An Extractor costs 25 minerals. So get your 10th Drone to morph an Extractor. When it starts morphing, supply goes down by 1, allowing you to spawn a Drone. Then cancel that Extractor, and the Egg morphing the 11th Drone is still intact, and you can time an Overlord at the same time. 

This allows you to get an extra Drone out faster. Very useful in ZvZ, or any other matchup to give that small yet crucial economic edge in the early game. This can be applied later as well, but it is most useful in the early game so I suggest that you do use this.

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Warpgate trick for faster zealots

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Protoss Warpgate Trick to get a faster Zealot

First some general info: Out of Gateways: Zealots build in 33s, Sentries/Stalkers build in 42s, High/Dark Templars build in 55s. Since Sentries/Stalkers and High/Dark Templars have the same build time, I will simply refer to Stalkers or HTs.

The cooldown time for Warpgates depends on which unit was built. If a Zealot was made, it will take ~22s for the Warpgate to be ready again. For Sentries/Stalkers, it takes ~31s for the Warpgate to be ready again. The Templars take ~44s for the Warpgate to be ready. I used "~" meaning approximately, because I had to build the unit, and then check the remaining cooldown time to see what it was. Although my hand speed is very fast, I still want to allow room for potential error.

Note: s = seconds of build time.

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Choosing random

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Hi I'm new to the site and this is my first guide.

This is about choosing random. Random gives you an advantage over your opponent. He doesn't know what you are, but you know what he is. The biggest thing is, your opponent will not be comfortable in the early game. If he has a special build that doesn't use an early scout, he would have to change it so that he could scout your race early on.  Builds that have an early part that rely on knowing what your opponent's race is, cannot work very well.

A lot of ppl complain about random players, but its actually a very hard thing to master. You have to be able to play all 9 match ups, which is three times the amount of practice you normally would do. Here are some general tips:

Always scout! People sometimes say they don't want to reveal what their race is, so they hold the scout back. I like to sneak my scout into the middle of the map and avoid their scouts.

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