StarCraft 2 Low APM Challenge 2022! Zerg Rank Up Guide - Bronze (Ep. 1)

[@WolfGangDealers]

Finally, the Zerg version. I love that you’re doing all of the races separately. I feel like the focus per episode will make it easier and better for people to follow. Keep up the good work!

[@PrinceMapleD]

The downside is just that you have to wait for extra long for the next episode of your preferred race :)

[@gabekeeter6415]

@@PrinceMapleD you'd be surprised how helpful it can be to understand the other races, so it could be worth watching if you have the time to spare

[@teqhzi]

1:24:28 Letting that guy nuke your army probably made his entire day and the fact you let it happen was wholesome as fuck

[@xoresgaminghub5412]

But the fact that zerg can remax from blow like that in 1 minute is scary is fuck

[@christianmoore7932]

​@@xoresgaminghub5412only if you leave them alone which no one outside of bronze won't do

[@toxiccobra8542]

I can’t wait to A move my vipers into 20 Vikings. I’ll see y’all in Bronze League Heroes!

[@robology1388]

After watching it for 10 years and not playing since SC1, I'm a new 42 year old player as of 3 weeks ago. And yes, I liked and subscribed! Thanks for the vid :)

[@ryanl157]

Still playing?

[@foncareth7857]

still playing ?

[@Invizive]

Started practicing first time in many years to get my mind off things, encouraged by you Was a mess of a build order first several games against the AI, but your tips helped a lot and I made good progress so far. Thanks

[@crispyco6277]

Out of respect to the time and dedication, i'm legit going to play both the other vids just muted in the background so u get the view time, even though i'm not as interested in the other races (might watch them at a later time when i learn zerg well enough to the poitn where i should care about what my oponent does). Thx for the dedicated videos, watched the entirerty of the random bronze to masters, it was great, getting a dedicated series, massive respect and appriciation from me and for sure loads of others! Thank you! :)

[@Threegress]

Honestly, there are few series that make me want to play Starcraft more than the low APM ones. Watching GM games is entertaining, but it's like watching high level chess.

[@pumakam]

Have to say I've had the itch to go back and play SC2 again after a long break and using these to rewrite old muscle memory. The idea of using less APM is brilliant because it also slows down the gameplay and allows me to see what's happening on a much slower scale, whereas the last time I played I was just concerned about how fast everything was moving.

[@tytar1037]

This helped so much. I’m only playing against harder AI. Getting better and having a lot of fun. Lurkers and dropper lords are so fun. Rip A move infestors

[@damedley75]

55:28 I love this rule! I wish I had it when I started out with Zerg! Now I'm a bit more aggressive than this 1000 mineral rule with spending. Will be interested to see how this rule evolves with more APM.

[@soldiersvejk2053]

This is probably my favorite series on your channel. Keep it going!

[@TritonTv69420]

Love that you go over the settings. Even though i have played about 14k ranked matches.... i still have a lot of default settings.

[@Desiderata0505]

Hey man, just wanted to say thank you for making these videos. This is exactly what I needed to get back into SC2, just like you said Ive been mostly just watching it (great commentary on the pro vids too btw), but thanks to this series Im gonna start playing again. Great content, keep it up!

[@enriquegarciacota3914]

Overlords are always cheerful and happy, they only have a “temperament” when judged by Terran standards.

[@damedley75]

39:44 Off the top of my head, the (wooden or wicker) shield was invented before the (metal) sword. But spears (wood, sharp stone) should have predated both of them. You're welcome!

[@weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee360]

Actual Winter: I might have been too greedy again Annoucer Winter: Panic Time~

[@Veilrender]

ive watched all your casts everyday for about a year, and just ACTUALLY started playing the game a week ago and have made it to plat bc of this series ❤

[@Boredom_Incarnate]

I have a question actually; So at 2:29:49 ish you make a larger round of overlords to get to max supply and I bet have a couple extra for overseers that might die. I get a lot of flack for doing large round of overlords when I find I wasn't able to keep my minerals down and have a good amount of larva. Can you elaborate on when is ok to do this and when is not?

[@21Komtur]

Keep the good work up. I enjoy this series a lot. Helps me and many like me to get more than just a little bit better.

[@RYXPfan]

As a League player of about 7 or 8 years I think you're on the money with your distinction between complexity and difficulty. The interactions between champs and the complexity of abilities + items is quite high. Difficulty is also pretty high, but not nearly as high as SC2. Ultimately I would say SC2 is much harder, but playing League at the highest levels certainly has it's own challenges.

[@bensosnowski1128]

I don’t want to learn how to be a good player. I want to learn how to be a good bronze player, that’s all. Low expectations, that’s the key

[@damedley75]

1:26:09 I have about 3k MMR with Zerg and I've never built a Viper! Some casters talk so much about how complex they are to use, but you're inspiring me to plug this hole in my game!

[@bjovers1]

Late game terran and protos is almost impossible without vipers. i hate those siegetank fortified positions. feels good just abducting all their tanks and colossus

[@Cairne92]

Thank you for uploading this giving me something different to think about today.

[@GoreTheSummoner]

1:48:40 what is this crabs dancing clip in the background? :D looks awesome

[@gusionproplay6412]

crab rave

[@teddanhedberg4137]

What nå incredible intro, amazing stuff winter!

[@Galahad54]

1:52:00 Hablo un poquito de Ingles. Banes - anywhere from near zero early game to > 80% for a game-winning push.

[@damedley75]

46:50 If the average MMR is going down, I can think of three possible reasons: 1) Small imbalance in the system. Players with fewer matches on their record are losing more than they "should" resulting in a net loss of MMR (the more established player gains less than the new player loses). 2) Bliz could have lowered the provisional starting MMR 3) Smurfs. After a while of maintaining the same MMR, which should feel neutral but actually feels horrible, players quit those accounts and start again at a lower level. The abandoned account is then no longer used in the average MMR calculation.

[@blaskbulwark2881]

Hell, it's about time.

[@GrippeeTV]

Your response to my second protoss question was priceless lmao

[@bphenry]

"Either I see what he's doing and that tells me what he's doing, or I see nothing and he's doing something else." LOL - The Donald Rumsfeld school of starcraft!

[@matespider]

2:03:20 My method of injects is conservative, I can't afford let chaos into my base, the one I'm having from my opponent is enough. My bases are under F1, F2, F3, F4, F5 so I hotkey all my inject-queens to 6, hotkey to inject is under space. So I click 6, F1, space, click (on hatch), F2, space, click, F3, space, click, F4, space, click, F5, space, click... and all 5 hatches injected. Fast, easy and reliable. And if opponent kills my queen in third base for example I just skip F3, space, click part. Q is cool key to set as hotkey (not many units use Q) from 0 for example so we have additional easy usable hotkey, numbers from 1-5 and Q.

[@gomensnana9169]

So I sat in a custom game and injected 1 hatchery 50 times. All 50 spawns occurred as long as I was spending the larvae. Not sure if there is a cap to the queue, but I think 6 full energy queens is enough lol

[@Nullimuffin]

Dude 6:03 I started Zerg in StarCraft and brood wars, went straight into Zerg on sc2 I am very devoted to this race lol

[@mikegamerguy4776]

I think the analogy would be, yes, a bigger hammer tends to smash bigger problems but in SC2 your hammer stops growing at 200 supply. A bigger hammer is often just not an option. I love dota. You have my condolences for discovering it. xD

[@malicesutton8592]

Where do I buy that T-shirt?

[@willspost]

@winterstarcraft where can I get that awesome zergling shirt?

[@retnuHDJ]

34:20 A truer statement has never been spoken haha

[@alzef1375]

3:44:05 you didn't have to do Terraria that dirty!

[@RYXPfan]

@1:28:20 “so basically what I’m trying to say is this is Serral warming up for IEM right now…” 🤣

[@tempusavatar]

Thanks for the video. I have a question that hopefully you will answer in the next Zerg APM episode. I remember a guide you made a few years ago for beginners, you demonstrated that Z v Z is best handled with smart baneling pushes. What has changed since then to adjust your lesson away from banelings in favor of roach hydra?

[@GenuBerlo]

I Don’t think anything really changed

[@PandaRizzArg]

Dude ! Allmost miss it ! Didnt recognize the video was yours because there was not even one single red arrow on the thumbnail !!

[@Adam-dx6wz]

This was so helpful thanks

[@jakubgolan1871]

I don't know, I have been playing coop and campaign for years and wanted to improve so started 1v1 recently, I got placed in Gold leauge and am trying to learn and follow Pigs macro guide. I top out at around 75-80 AMP as Zerg and definitely don't feel i'm bored :D Hope to get to the point where it will feel slow :) Anyway thanks for the great vids.

[@bentroyer1]

Hotkeying with eggs is shift + 1 not ctrl+1 as your instinct pls makes things much simpler unless you change your ctrl to steal and add key which I highly recommend. Leave alt on steal to be used like your create key modifier. Btw yes the point of this is to keep everything on different keys.

[@fulignosa]

I miss infested terran. From my point of view, anti air cannon buff (huge damage against armored air, like vrays, carriers, BC and vikings, all late game stuff) was the culprit. Didn`t need that buff. Before anti air cannon, it only had rifle. That was good enough. I still don`t understand why they buffed infested terran back in the day. It became a huge problem shortly after as expected. shroud is a joke.

[@austinsmith7859]

I miss the scourge. They would have been a balanced counter to mass void ray or tempest

[@atrtsh]

@@austinsmith7859 scourge are nice but fragile, and rely on perfect micro to be effective. That means pros would get good value but then scourge would be nerfed into the ground and be useless for the rest of us. Zerg units can usually be described as a weak/manual/expensive version of other race's units, zerg are very bad for that. We could do with hydra at tier one, upgrades at tier two.

[@HappyTwoBe]

15:33 Choose Ability or A.I. Target for Global players, Z, X and C, V if you want to be extensive and edit via notepad. 1:18:25 For the resource lost to be 5:1 imbalance, that would be like throwing a few banelings into destructible rocks every 30 seconds of the game. 1:40:35 This dig about quantity made me giggle. He was in grad school at the time and KZbin content creation was just becoming a real revenue generator for people. We live in a different world than a decade ago. But I'm sure this would make him laugh too :) I learned a lot from Day[9] about passion for the game, and about how individual units work. That passion he passed along I'm sure not just to me, but infused a lot of other SC2 content creators. It was incredibly early on in the meta development of SC2 that he was actively making content, so I feel he never got to present it as it matured through LoTV. But I'm sure he still privately follows the scene and watches the big tourney's. Like you say, no one ever really stops playing SC2.

[@Lamouettekamikaze]

Thank you for this golden shower of knowledge 😂

[@SilenceSebi]

How you set your colour on white ? O_o Amazing Content btw :)

[@Shawn-lw3rn]

i cant say i agree. i have always been zerg. the whole reason i bought the game was to be zerg . zerg for life baby!

[@sawyer6551]

When should I use macro hatches? Just started playing and I think I cant spend my money fast enough because I don't stay on top of my injects well yet so I am behind on larva. Should I spam macro hatches or suffer it out till I get better at injecting?

[@kiakaspian1462]

What are your thoughts on injects via the mini-map? I have my injection queens on 5 and find that if I click the general vicinity of a hatchery after hitting the injection hotkey, the nearest queen in the group will do it.

[@brockwoodburn5285]

Whatever works best for you but most pros inject all of their hatches in less than a second

[@dragoda]

Cool pijamas!!!

[@nathangehman7018]

One thing thats a bit of a struggle is that its difficult to tell what you are making from the larvae... I'm not sure how to fix that tho

[@matespider]

I know how you can turn on death animations of units and buildings on low shaders, it looks cool, fps are not dropping so there is no need to have them off on low shaders. Don't know why it's not default. If someone wants it just ask. It's legal ofcourse and you don't need any programs, you just changing one line in official SC2 file Variables txt which is in MyDocuments/StarCraft II folder.

[@Nullimuffin]

Thank you in the future 48:19

[@horseface31]

Just learned how to setup starcraft on my steam deck so I'm doing my own low apm challenge. Currently my average apm with the controller is 35, hoping to get to 100 and be platinum eventually. Don't have high hopes for anything past that.

[@scottmiller4770]

Late game vs someone with heavy mines if you fly 1 or 2 corruptors over the mines in front of your army you can deal with many mines. Corruptors take a lot of shots before they go down. it is better than overlords.

[@mr.bojangles9215]

Hey winter if your reading this, one thing I’ve been struggling with is early hellions(or maybe they aren’t early) getting into my mineral lines and causing me to panic. Is the answer just more queens earlier?

[@larryu1997]

Yes, and i think if you can get a wall in time at the natural with 1 or 2 queens on hold position as your door will help :)

[@cobrabm]

This guide helped me only win from 1450 mmr to 2300

[@habntablet6991]

Man u are awesome :D

[@flockenlp1]

Does good macro still get you to plat in 2024? Either I am not doing what Winter is telling me to or people got better

[@thebestdustbringer6505]

so is it fewer zerg players in early leagues because they're more difficult?

[@MrAlex28]

Hi huge Fan of the series. The First one inspired me to get back into StarCraft myself and im currently a low Diamond (ADV Plat) zerg. Here is my Question: im struggling hard to compete with terrans in my ELO. I mostly got Diamond by makroing with roach Hydra but its not working nearly as good against terran. Should i try to switch to Hydra Ling bane or just keep refining the build that got me this far. Thx in advance

[@solas6342]

IMHO yes, in Diamond you are going to need to learn how to play Ling/Bane styles in ZvT.

[@atrtsh]

You need lurkers and vipers

[@ProfessirRay]

Thanks for these guides Winter. Now I can pretend to my wife that I know what it is happening during pro level matches!

[@isaackvasager9957]

You mentioned Serral and a select all queen command...how does one do that?

[@fdcrat]

There is no built-in button for that. He simply creates one control group for the creep queens and another where they all are hotkeyed.

[@MrCreed145]

I cant figure out how to download sc2 replay stats. I hit download app, it gave me like 5 compressed files my computer wont let me open. I say open anyways and it says I need to download apps or something etc. usually you hit download and an application downloader pops up and walks you through it.

[@doorenthusiast1397]

Have you tried extracting all the compressed files into a folder first? After you extract them you should be able to run the application

[@MrCreed145]

@@doorenthusiast1397 ya and then it said I need Microsoft apps or something

[@YoureWrongImRightGetOverIt]

well it looks like i got a ways to go, im gold rank and my APM is 25-30 every match. i just dont know what people are doing, are they really making 100+ meaningful actions per min? or are they just spamming keys, it looks like they just spam camera keys 90% of the time jumping back and forth between locations 30x in 2 seconds. i must have a lot to learn.

[@panzerkunst9933]

Winter u are the best !!

[@DrLoveBerry]

Have to agree, zerg feels like the kind of pie you like eating so much you wanna make sure you don't eat it all the time. Started out as protoss and feel like my early game toss is stronger. Long live the OG RTS. Chess 3.2

[@PenguinIceDelta]

Protoss starts off the strongest but the more skill you acquire, the more micro you do, the worse they scale comparably to other races. (That's like at GM though).

[@DrLoveBerry]

@@PenguinIceDelta agreed

[@JohnSmith-zf3yk]

30:00 [FamilyTherapy]

[@noone-pr1st]

you just trailed off when you were xplaining why and when u were looking at the minimap

[@qwertyzz7]

I came back right around your first bronze to master guide. I can tell you I have run into a disturbing amount of macro players using your openings over the past 2 years. I blame you for the MMR pit more than anyone.

[@SuperPukebucket]

I really want to play toss or Terran for some reason. But I can only consistently gain ranks as Zerg. Is only thing that my brain keeps track of

[@LddStyx]

Minimap inject is the slowest, but best for noobs as it builds both precision and a habit of looking at the damn thing at least once every cycle.

[@hrothgarvonmt]

13:18 you're never alone when Brenda is in the creep

[@arcturus64]

In what composition would you use Mutas?

[@PenguinIceDelta]

Ling bane muta usually. But be careful. Mutas are expensive and require a lot of control. Something like 4 widow mines could destroy an entire flock, and lose you a game.

[@onxiaftw]

2:49:35 Sir this isn't Wendies LMAO

[@Number1139.0]

1:24:12 what a generous god "Small losses" Btw you gave him a 72 killed supply nuke and he doesnt even gg

[@jrzaike9877]

What is MMR?

[@larryu1997]

03:06:21 GachiGuru's pov: I won that battle, but lost the war..

[@crunch1morris]

Is it possible to weaponize the creep ?

[@PenguinIceDelta]

It's vision and speed boost is the weapon, especially with getting surrounds with lings to prevent escapes

[@codegeass7162]

Is Lings into Mutas bad in zerg v zerg?

[@solas6342]

not necessarily

[@PenguinIceDelta]

It's situational. Mutas are expensive, teching up to them means you're not droning or producing units, which could put you in a bad state as ZvZ is insanity. Spore colonies also gain more damage against biological, so zerg has cost effective answers against them

[@AD-lr6pc]

Wait isn’t pride a rly good Zerg map?

[@__-nd5qi]

Why not zerglings?

[@mikecicciari845]

he spends a lot of time with overcapped minerals, is that like a softcap?

[@mikecicciari845]

nvm he just answered my question, its a soft cap.

[@TheLogancoats]

lol he can talk and stream at 83 apm. ive been playing Starcraft since I was a kid and like 104 bpm im is my personal best.

[@Gredddfe]

"Rank up as zerg by playing low APM!" "Actually wait ....."

[@birtanikk2696]

Zerg poweeeeeeeerrrrrrrrr aaahahaha ❤️

[@MrRubixscube]

the 2nd to last part of the video erroneously mentions silver instead of bronze. you're not out of there yet

[@ThunderstruckElectronix]

3:25 benchmarks

[@The_Phlebotomist]

Damn, that was an intro! Lol

[@JG-ti7id]

asalwaystyforyourhardworkanddedication!!!

[@rankmayor4076]

It's strange I get cheesed all the time and you didn't get one as far as I could see. Maybe it's the times haha.

[@midweekcentaur1050]

New game, every spore twenty Winter mentions you take a rip.

[@davidduteau1895]

Thats me im totally the I’ve watched winter roaches and hydras lmfao 😂😂

[@naakuthalegend]

i bought this game in 2010 or whevenver it first came out and i was 21 and i was today years old when i learned creep does not give vision only tumors do.

[@LOVEinThisUsername]

1:24:00 Everyone gather round!

[@jduyker]

nice

[@reallyanotheruser7290]

Thank you for this guide! Btw shouldnt the timestamp "Silver 3 to Silver 1" be "Bronce 3 to Bronce 1"?

[@Norwegian_username]

Finally welcome to the dark side