Zerg Academy: How to Improve fast + Zerg Rhythm

[@wtfill]

I love this terminator skin of Lambo :)

[@TheStarcraft12]

I’m not sure if a video already exists, but as a diamond 2 Zerg I still don’t feel confident in my scout timings. A video on scouting timings and methods vs every matchup would be greatly helpful to me, and maybe others as well. As Zerg I regularly just die to pressure due to my poor scouting, some guidance would be fantastic.

[@LamboSC2]

I will definitely talk about scouting in future videos, but to be honest most of the time when people say they die due to poor scouting its more so due to the lack of mapvision or knowledge of the matchups. In both ZvP and ZvT you can play basically without too much scouting as long as you see what leaves your opponents base and in ZvZ similarly to how I explained it in this video you just try to see what's happening with zerglings after each macrocycle.

[@ionutdevil92]

A video idea would be to make a map vision/scouting/overlord placement guide. That would be very helpful imo.

[@DrGoo-px9eb]

Diamond 1 zerg here that really tried to learn what to really look for when scouting. Take all this info with a million big grains of salt since I'm only recently focusing on it. ZvP is my most confident matchup, all you really need to scout for is their tech and when they take their 3rd. I start with a drone scout just to see if they go nexus first, in which case I drone aggressively or if they cheese. Then at around 3:30 send in the second overloard to scout for stargate or robo. Stargate openers allow you to drone more and be less careful than a robo opener since this gives them access to warp prism harass or pushes. At around 4min to 4:30 look for 3rd. If they take their 3rd, drone to 70 workers. If they don't stop at around 48-53 and make army. Usually this will be a 2 base adept timing if they have a twilight so be prepared. Another thing you might see is double stargate with the 2nd ovie, throw down 2 spores per base and spam queens For ZvT I mostly try and see whether they go for hellions or a 16 marine drop. All you need to do is have an overlord or lings at their 2nd base. If they go hellions, make sure to send in an ovie to see if it will be a hellbat push. If they go marines you don't need to scout a lot, only useful info will be their third timing to see if they are doing macro or a 2 base tank push. Sadly I can't give you exact timings. Tank push will usually hit slightly after 6min if they don't go for a third. ZvZ, just have ovies all over the map. Get ovie speed, so you can keep flying over their bases to see if they go roach or muta Hope this somewhat helps and hopefully I didn't say too much bullshit

[@gruchenstein9163]

dont forget meta changes, your scouting need to adapt, im noob but i think im right about this, also your if you want your scouting usefull there must go decision making afterwards depeding on scouting info

[@bobbyfischer117]

@@LamboSC2 i have an 80% zvz winrate

[@drakemcfayden8980]

One thing I did to help force me to look at the minimap was to turn off all game sounds for a few weeks. It takes away any sense of security when you expect to hear that your Drones are under attack. I think a video outlining settings like self/ally/enemy colors, graphics to better see cloaked units, how GMs use control groups, adding extra rapid-fire hotkeys, and maybe camera keys would help Bronze to Diamond players. Another thing I loved back in WoL and HotS was how guides had benchmarks set up. If you could set a generic 4 or 5 minute build with an average Drone count, supply count, and creep spread distance for the 3, 4, and 5 minute intervals for different leagues, it helps players practice in a sand box game.

[@ShinySalamence1]

Holy… this is a video I wish I had 10 years ago… Even climbing all the way to diamond, I feel like I could never structure this in my head and practice this “cycle” of tasks. Because of this, I would always have small things slip by, like getting supply blocked, not spending money, forgetting creep spread, or late injects as the game went on, etc. because focusing on other things like micro. I was scatter-brained. If there’s one video all zerg players should watch, it’s gotta be this one.

[@JohnCephas]

How's it going for you now friend? I am dia 2 at the moment

[@TheAgavi]

Man, I followed this advice today. Gold 1 and on a hot losing streak before I watched this. I told myself I dont care if I win or lose, I'm not going to miss an inject... I won 15 ladder games in a row. Any time my opponent came near my base I could just flood units over them.

[@altonito777]

Just stack injects :)

[@michaelpohlgeers3214]

I have never seen this rhythm explained that well. Thank you! Love your content, really helps me in the game :)

[@mechanics7633]

Oh my god Lambo has a hole in his head

[@jacobsvensson8193]

And there's no one to fix it. He gotta straighten his thoughts, been thinking too much sick shit...

[@wtfill]

But jokes aside - really nice content, thank you. Never though of Zerg gameplay as rhythm, but this makes total sense. I would love to see engagement a bit higher in the priorities, because this is something massivaly underlooked in lower leagues (in my league).

[@Herold_sc2]

Zerg academy sounds like a great series

[@ArbyCreations]

Im loving this, as a new player I have no idea what Im doing and videos like this really help to get started.

[@nicoleshelby9951]

LOVE THIS CONTENT! Any chance for some ZvP 12 pool guide?

[@LamboSC2]

yes i will definitely do a 12pool zvp guide at some point soon

[@someguy7474]

@@LamboSC2masters league here i come!

[@michalhrbek3541]

@@LamboSC2 Dont do that! We dont want to meet it in battle!

[@calvinli1153]

Thanks Lambo, helps a lot to have the improvement and thought processes explained :)

[@AaronCoakley]

Thank you so much for slowing down and explaining hotkey sequences and actions and rhythm. Q C C C, etc... I think this is the first video I've seen where the frame-rate and explanation on something like creep spread - ie oh, he actually used a cam hotkey and clicked on the queen to get it to do the spread. Everyone else may use the words creep spread and if you're lucky and get 30fps, you see one frame (was is supposed to be subliminal?) of that part of the map and heard 50 clicks and clacks.

[@MrBulya]

Perhaps less related to this video, but some content that I'd like to have is a high level analysis of games. When games are casted many times people say the winner won due to some nice move he had, but many times that is not really the case. If a player who was a head won a fight in style it doesn't mean that was the reason he won, he was ahead by that time. An analysis of who gets ahead at what point in the game, and what was the reason for that can be some very nice content for the hardcore players, like me. I don't know if its as attractive to the casual players, but at least for now all the content you released was for the more hardcore players, so it will be good I think.

[@coruco7550]

Gr8 coaching sensei Lambo. Thanks for the tips

[@gamercatsz5441]

The world Champion’s coach.

[@carlosreyesf19]

Awesome video! I will practice like that from now on. I would like a video about hotkeys and rapid fire settings (I only use rapid fire for my ravagers)

[@hockeyguy1166]

I have every thing rapid fire. Buildings, attack move ect...

[@ariepranasakti6372]

damn this video is godsend, im master 3 in all 3 races. I've found macro flow in both terran and protoss races, even though their macro is harder, but easier for them to not get supply blocked, because their macro flow is obvious. Zerg however, i've never find a flow that works for me, i always get supply blocked sometime in the game, and my creep spread is never decent either. Thanks man!

[@jamescasey1994]

Hell yeah dude! I love content like this so much. If this is the stuff primarily directed at bronze to dia, Im really excited to see more. Have you thought about collabing with someone like PiG or SortOf? You guys going over like masters+ replays and nitpicking them would be a really cool thing to see for improving at the higher/highest levels.

[@kgeo2686]

4QQ for the win!!! Inject, Over, Spend, Creep is my cycle

[@doc6845]

Hey great Video! I liked and subscribed.

[@matespider]

17:37 Lambo but you should produce units immidietly after injects cause if larva pop you start wasting your larva production by hatcheries cause you have above 3. anyway... my cycle in diamond league looks like this: 1. Injects 2. Production (ovies then units) 3. Controling army/setting lings on map, taking care of tech buildings. 4. Spreading creep, first tumors from queens then from existing tumors. 5. If there is still time left I set overlords on map (but most important ovies for vision I set while production, from egg). Oh and there is no time left to think in my case 😅 SC2 is too fast game. My apm is around 200 and apparently it's too low.

[@LamboSC2]

yeah sure, as i said i produce units inbetween every single step, i just simplified it for the video and i'm pretty sure i also mentioned that you guys can have your own macro cycle i'm mostly just giving examples.

[@mr.melondeawa6381]

Really great video! very helpful for all kind of players and a good introduction of sc form my friends

[@TheChrisBagel]

Loving all this great content my dude! It would be cool if you could at some point go super in depth with Queens, beyond just injecting and creep spreading. Would be great to know your thoughts on what is the optimal number of queens for different matchups, different builds, and different defensive needs. You could also cover queen micro/positioning, and perhaps talk about structure placement at the same time.

[@LamboSC2]

I will definetely not do an extra video on that, but this will naturally be talked about alot when i do the actual matchup guides.

[@spaasm717]

About that thumbnail, you look dashing in glasses Lambo.

[@Dyncommon]

This video is going to help a lot of my friends :) I learned a thing or two as well.

[@Andreas-mr6wc]

Hey lambo, i've been struggling agaisnt terran mech, could you make a guide on it?

[@MusicusSC]

Excellent video, makes me want to play and improve again as a diamond player that "gave up".

[@moritzs7228]

Thanks Lambo. Helps a lot for sure.

[@randomhuman4405]

You should teach my professors how to be transparant when they are writing to the blackboard.

[@teamredshirt]

the last time I made a swing at being anything other than a tin league stream viewer, I used a interval timer on my phone for drilling the inject timing into my head.

[@matespider]

7:40 What are 'elazerlords' ??

[@LamboSC2]

Elazer is known to make too many overlords so he would for example be at 60/148 supply which is even worse than being supplyblocked very often.

[@darksamoth9052]

looking for a "classic" bo replay

[@KW-ju2tl]

I am currently stuck in diamond 3 and this is probably a dumb question, but do you need to memorize the build orders of the other two races very well in order to get to a higher level? I learned when to send the overlords in, but sometimes I just don't know how to read what I am seeing. Like, is that too much barracks/gates at this time point? What kind of timing attack is he going for? Currently I only know how to read very basic stuff like mech/bio against terran and ground/air against protoss. I can probably read one or two all in but that's it. Any advices?

[@LamboSC2]

I think it is not super necessary to memorize each and every build especailly below grandmasters where players don't play real buildorders. Just having a general Idea of potential timings and when u need units /static defense / what type of units is more than enough. Having a general sense of what dronecounts you can go towards is nice but you can feel that out, and more often than not overdroning in diamond league is fine as long as you macro correctly.

[@fdcrat]

I don't understand why he put the rhythm tasks in that order. When your larva pop, your larva is capped and no longer producing new larva. It should be more important to spend them immediately than to spread the creep. Vibe does injent, spend larva, spread creep, make overlords, which to me makes more sence. Does anybody have any thoughts?

[@prod.till82]

Sehr gutes Video. Hemd Killa!

[@knighthawk2062]

Anyone know of any good multi tasking trainers??

[@calibmarquez9269]

Are Elazerlords cool if im 60 drones 3 base about to roach spam?

[@AboutOliver]

I absolutely adore the thumbnail for this. How did you make it, if you don't mind me asking?

[@LamboSC2]

Someone else made it for me :D

[@AboutOliver]

@@LamboSC2 Ah gotcha. Thanks!

[@MrSAv1Or]

hi, you have guide how defence 3 spine 12/13 pool?

[@faniedevilliers5929]

Thanks Lambo! Brilliant video!

[@josesuch4962]

Lambo, I don't know where to put my overlords, they are just piling up in one place most of the time. I always forget about them.

[@navygrubbs]

Fantastic video. Could you try to explain how to know when you have enough units to defend incoming attacks and when it's safe to switch back to making drones in the next one?

[@MrBulya]

Now that you covered the topics, perhaps we can go over the topics one by one. As even though my injects are far not perfect, I don't really know what do I do to focus on injects so that they would be better. In the early game injects are sort of part of the build order, as tumors. But the further the game goes I don't really know what is the better way to inject so my shortcut is inject twice each time I do it, though it does mean the queen had the energy to inject before. Perhaps also what queens should be control grouped compared to what queens shouldn't can be nice.

[@LamboSC2]

Just actively thinking about each of those without getting distracted by the game is all you need to do. What should happen with injects for example is that you will start to recognize when it's time to inject naturally and never have to stack them. I already made a tutorial on how to do the injects and the hotkeying of the queens is pretty straightforward, 1 hotkey for inject- and 1 for creepqueens.

[@manhoodlive7052]

Can you show us the hotkeys? You regroup so fast your units for a runby for example. And maybe make some tutorial about Terran? Appreciate it ! :)

[@ronslay2040]

Such good info!! Thank you Lambo

[@julzp424]

We got Vibe, Nuero, and now Lambo ty very much.

[@diddleyshinyhunter]

Thanks, this was really helpful! :)

[@kalujny]

Great stuff, appreciate it a lot as a noob.

[@Adamin_The_III]

"For the first couple of days just focus on 1 thing" how often do you think we play?

[@LTC122003]

That looks great. Thanks man!

[@bombasticcat]

how to you focus on not getting supply blocked, if you dont remeber it? Is my brain already skill capped?

[@LamboSC2]

You focus to look at the top right between actions, u can also learn the first 6 or so overlords as part of the build and always make them from the same exact larva. And u can learn to always make a couple overlords evertime u make units(before or after u inject), the more eco u have the more overlords u make at once.

[@AlexScorpionVn]

Inspiring. Do it in the same order and maybe in the same creep direction is not revolutionary, but i liked it and i will practice it.

[@kidbyg2629]

One of the things that would realy interests me is simple scouting reads, like: is this an allin? proxy? I made it a habbit to scout in the early game, but often iam not capable of reading the information properly, Also: how many queens do i need for injects, is three enough larva?

[@misterblank7795]

I'm a noob myself but I think it's 1 per hatchery. Since it doesn't stack and if you inject like 2 times in a row it will just queue it for second time.

[@robbyiss]

Wow Harstem should watch this

[@someguy7474]

the content is amazing but can I just say these fucking thumbnails are one of the best things about these videos

[@BlackwidowGG]

Awesome video, love it

[@sharkbait6938]

Oooo, this series is gonna be for me, being a 3.4-3.5k Zerg

[@StefanStra]

Love it! How do you recognize when your next cycle starts? Do you watch the in-game timer ?

[@Neoplasie1900]

There are a few ways to check it. Firstly, there's the timer. You can watch that while you're managing economy. Also queen energy works well - by the time one inject cycle is done, queen gather 25 energy to inject/spread creep again. Secondly, there's an audio cue when injects finish. It sounds slimey (like everything with zerg) but you get used to it. And talking about getting used to it; practicing a lot. Our brains are quitegood at getting down a rhythmic pattern. After a while you will "feel" when the next cycle is due.

[@tegridyfarms6197]

Nice. Ty man way better than some b2gm.

[@mustafaalkhafaji4744]

Day 9 made me do it!!

[@rozmarinideas5340]

Oh my god no the zergs are coming for us Uthermal help us they're getting better at the game my winrate is going to plummet noooooooooooooooooooo

[@fadikiki]

If you inject and then start spreading creep, that means your larva is lying idle for like 5 seconds every cycle. You said it's possible to buy army in-between spreading creep and in general it's good idea to prioritize, but wouldn't it better to focus on spending larva right after injects and only then go to spread creep?

[@FeraI_]

great job

[@unaluv88]

Many thanks!

[@roky2822]

Could you do a video explaining your hotkeys? Attack is on T I see. That's unusual.

[@Rollbretttreter]

Grid Hotkeys have attack move on T. That is one of the preconfigured layouts.

[@LamboSC2]

it's just grid hotkeys besides the explode bane hotkey which i changed

[@sleep4103]

you should make a video where you flme why something is bad

[@eugenegalinov4184]

This is great ! thanks a lot

[@glebeshye7197]

How you so fast do injects? It takes for you 0.5 of second.

[@ising4uifyousing4me]

Hey dude, Easy way is using camera locations, or like me, base camera hotkey on Spacebar. Then you can have all queens on one hotkey (5 for me) then press inject, base camera key, click and repeat, can do insanely quickly.

[@LamboSC2]

I made a video on how all the pros including me are doing their injects and it still is up to date: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jGTGpHp7r62daM0

[@dfsdsfsdfsadfdsfa223]

What I like to do is make lots of queens, to have extra injects.

[@thegalbenduck5306]

POGGIES

[@kvasianisimus_ka944]

LAMBONATOR

[@Moeron86]

There's no wrong way to play starcraft as long as your having fun. Unless you literally play the game as your job anyway

[@maxmarkensten8841]

very good video

[@SigilSC2]

Thanks for the concise information. I talked about a lot of the similar information in an article I put together where you group the injects together with larva and creep and practicing it as a rhythm to build muscle memory. sc2swarm.com/index.php/2017/11/22/introductory-starcraft-2-macro-cycle-and-control-grouping-eggs-u-sigilsc2/ It's great to see a pro repeating the same thing. I'm My order is a bit different but while I'm spreading creep there's usually thoughts going on about map vision and scouting as I'm forced to look at the minimap. Love the bit about Day9 while you were a gold player - I remember that specific video! And unsurprisingly you're WAY faster at it, I'm starting to wonder if I should be grinding out the speed of that cycle more.

[@addtyu6176]

Thank you, for this tutorial.. but I gave up playing after seeing this....

[@anderssvensson1397]

thank you!

[@ibabattlenet180]

nice!

[@andreashaase424]

Hallo Lambo, ich freue mich sehr auf deine Serie und hoffe, dass es auch dein Ziel ist Noobs(Silber...) wie mich dabei abzuholen. Ich fand bereits die Serie von ViBE Bronze to GM sehr gut(kzbin.info/www/bejne/ppirYYeli8-BraM) aber vielleicht fällt dir auf, was man nochmal besser oder anders erklären kann. Also Noob liegen meine Schwächen klar beim Macro und das ich mich anfangs einfach nicht gut gegen Cheese verteidigen kann. Ich bin wirklich gespannt, was du alles zeigst ^^ Mit freundlichen Grüßen Andreas

[@mercury3126]

😳😳😍😍😍👀

[@janbrndke8699]

Gutes Video! Es gibt in deinen Videos immer wieder kurze Tonaussetzer. Das ist wirklich schade. Mich wundert es, dass es bisher niemand angemerkt hat.

[@ph0man]

I was sceptical about this vid. Would there be that much help for me in master? But I really liked it a lot! Awesome vid!

[@teamredshirt]

The first thing we learn when getting to a decently high level in any given pursuit is that there is always something else to learn. The moment we tell ourselves that we have nothing else to learn we stop improving. I’m not saying this be a knowitall asshat, I’ve struggled with that assumption a lot.

[@macros3001]

Rhythm is a dancer, it's a zergs companion...

[@josesuch4962]

Wahahaha I am also an Elazerlords

[@dannybski9620]

this is useful but i often wonder how many more sc2 fans there would be if things like injects were on autocast, at least in the lower leagues. It would make the game way more accessible and less intimidating to new players, while also letting more people get to the "beautiful" part of the game like strategy, unit compositions, timings, etc.

[@jakoballan2768]

I think the issue with that is it'd make Zerg far easier than any of the other races

[@dannybski9620]

@@jakoballan2768 the other races could have similar features. I'm a protoss main and there is no single mechanic that is as hard as injects IMO. Chrono boosting on auto cast like in campaign would be nice, but not nearly as impactful as auto injects.

[@jakoballan2768]

@@dannybski9620 Injects really aren't that hard IMO (I play Zerg personally), the one thing I will say is that missing injects is a game losing mistake, but actually hitting them just takes practice. It's a single action every 30 seconds in the game, it's really not that bad. Especially since a lot of mechanics other races need to deal with zerg doesn't (like producing out of multiple different types of buildings, probe/scv production, hotkeying units as they're produced (zerg can just hotkey the larva and be good to go) etc. ) you only need to manage the larva. The benefit is the simplicity, the downside is that mistakes are a lot more punishing.

[@dannybski9620]

@@jakoballan2768 true and i suck at terran. i do play zerg as well and if there is a battle going on and I'm trying to micro, there is no way i'm going to hit those injects lol. i think the single larva manipulation is a good point, but also offset by the idea of making units or workers.. and then you're double screwed by missing injects. we also can't queue up the next worker as zerg - we have to wait for that larva to be available.. and managing rally points is tougher too.

[@jakoballan2768]

@@dannybski9620 The key to hitting injects mid battle is to just play with roaches, you can leave those dudes without micro for like an hour and it's fine xD. I do understand your point and I think zerg's macro cycle is harder than the other races, but it's also more powerful (which is why zerg expands lightning fast) making it so the macro is easier would still make them a little too strong imo.

[@innoje3408]

POGGIES