Getting Started as Zerg – Part 1 Macro

So you've finally decided to start playing Starcraft? Or perhaps you played during WoL and realized you've forgotten pretty much everything you knew. Whatever the case may be, this is guide is written to help new Zerg players, or players that are struggling to get out of Bronze or Silver. This information isn't particularly earth shattering, but I find that most of the good guides out there are Youtube videos, which can be extremely frustrating if you're like me and are not a visual learner. So without further ado lets get this guide started!

This guide will cover macroing, which is the most important part of Starcrat, and the first thing you'll want to train your muscle memory to learn.

Injecting Larva

As a Zerg player your macro is mechanically easier than Terran or Protoss, but there's also less margin for error when injecting larva as opposed to dropping MULEs or Chronoboosting, because inject does not stack! Macro wise you have three tasks to keep in mind, inject larva, drone when its safe to do so, and spread creep. Hitting your injects is key to building a good economy and a strong army, because every unit you morph comes from one larva pool.

There are several ways to make hitting your injects easier which I will go over now. My personal favorite is to hot key (Crtl + A Number) each of your hatcheries, and then just press the number you chose to instantly select that hatchery. You'll want to regularly tap through them as the game goes on. I like this method because one tap of the number will allow you to see if you need to inject, and two taps will center the camera of your hatch, its a good way to check on your injects without having to move the camera.

Another method is to make camera hot keys (Crtl + F5-F8), once you created the hotkey simply pressing this will let you instantly reposition the camera over your hatches, and once again check on the status of your hatchery, without changing your unit selection. I find camera hot keys to be one of the least intuitive part about Starcraft 2, so I'd recommend trying to incorporate them before your muscle memory is set in stone, you'll find the pay offs to be huge.

Finally you can hot key your Queens, this can be considered a slightly more advanced method, because its wasted time if you tap through and your larva is not done yet, but if you can develop a good rhythm then this is the most efficient method in terms of APM use. If you have a good internal clock, and trust yourself to tap through your Queens every 40 game seconds this is the best method.

Unit Production

Zerg is vastly different from Protoss and Terran in terms of unit production, because everything including your workers and Overlords are produced from one building. So let's go over how Zerg production works, and how to get the most out of playing Zerg.

In order to produce Zerg units you'll need supply, which comes from your Overlords. Unlike other race's sources of supply, Overlords are units that can move around the map. You'll want to be training overlords regularly, its much better to have a little too much supply than to get supply blocked.  Keep in mind that Overlords are trained from larva, and therefore each Overlord trained is a unit you can't morph, so be careful not to create too many Overlords.

Unique to Zerg, your production structures has two rallies, your worker rally and your unit rally. By default worker rally is changed with (G), and unit rally is changed with (R). Be sure that each time you drop a new hatch you set your worker rally to the minerals or gas. Note that Queens will not rally, so if you're using Queens offensively you'll have to manually move them. Also of note, Overlords DO rally, so if you're using rally points you'll need to be careful not to let your Overlords near the front lines. I like to individually rally their eggs to a safe place.

To be efficient when producing units you'll want to make a control group that contains all of your hatcheries. I like to use the control group 0, but it's up to you! To make this you'll want to assign your first hatch to whatever number you wish to use, then as you build new hatcheries you'll want to select your production group, hold the Shift key, click the new hatchery and hit 0 or whatever number you chose to use. This will add your new hatch to your existing control group. This same technique is also used to add units to your control group!

Once you have your production group, all you need to do is tap the number (in my case Zero) then hit S to spawn units, and finally hold down whatever button you want to spawn, this will allow you to quickly spend your money which is key to winning Starcraft 2. Having one big production group will also save you time when setting rallies, having one universal rally point is great before a big attack!

Spreading Creep

Creep spread is very important in game, because it helps with map awareness and control, along with allowing your units to move faster. I recommend adding 1-2 extra Queens after your second hatchery, this will help you with defense, and spreading your creep without sacrificing larva injects.

To effectively spread creep you'll want to move your Queen to the edge of where your creep is laid down, and drop a creep tumor. You probably already knew that, but here are some tips that can make you more efficient.

If you allow your Queen's energy to build up don't sweat it! Hold down the Shift key and drop multiple tumors, this will allow you to queue up orders so you can spread creep quickly and efficiently without having to wait around for you queen to actually drop the tumors.

Finally a good device to help you establish a rhythm is this little rhyme, “Tap, Cap, Map”. The tap refers to your hatches, do you need to inject larva? The cap is your population, do you need to build Overlords? The map is your creep, are there enemies coming that you need to worry about? If not, move your queens to the edge of your creep and drop some more tumors!

I really hope this guide is useful to people that are getting started out there. Starcraft can be intimidating at first, but we're a friendly community and the game itself is pretty good at placing you with people of your level. Let me know if you enjoyed this guide, I'm considering a sequel about unit compositions, spell casters, and scouting. Have fun out there friend, and remember even the WCS champions have to start somewhere, maybe one day we'll see you there!