dApollo released a 4-part Zerg tutorial series (and has started the Protoss series as I write),  and they’re absolutely fantastic. He starts out at the beginning of bronze and works up through diamond, winning about 20 games in a row. For low-level players like me, he advocates playing safe and scouting a lot. Obviously, Apollo is much smarter than I am and knows how to interpret different scouts and prepare accordingly, but I think it’s a good mindset to have.

Here are a few things he emphasized:

• Send in an overlord scout around 5:45 – 6:00 to see what they’re doing. This is right around the time when people really get into their game, and you can see what’s going on
• Get the evo chamber if you’re uncertain about stargate or banshee play (which he was relatively often), but don’t get spore crawlers. Because he drones so hard, the 75 minerals isn’t a big deal to be safe, but with good overlord positioning, you should have time to throw done reactive spore crawlers
• Get 3 queens ASAP. 2 are injecting larva, and the 3rd is spreading creep
• He was a big fan of a single spine crawler at the front, just to be safe. It’s not a huge investment, and I think it prevents a lot of silly situations

I wrote down a few of his build orders, which shouldn’t be too surprising. Note that his early buildings are with a certain drone, not at a certain supply, so he has constant drone production.

dApollo 14 gas, 15 pool (ZvT, ZvP)

• 9 overlord
• 12th drone scouts
• 14th drone extractor
• 15th drone pool
• 15 overlord
• 15 2 lings, queen (lings spread to towers, behind natural, scouting up ramp

In ZvZ, he prefers to play defensively, though he did show a few strong counters and some aggressive play. At the bronze/silver level, he did a defensive roach build

dApollo defensive roaches (ZvZ)

• 9 overlord
• 12th drone scouts
• 14th pool
• 16 overlord
• extractor when pool is almost done
• 16 2 lings, queen (same as above)
• 20 roach warren
• 2nd queen somewhere in here
• 25ish hatch

He points out that it doesn’t work as well at the higher levels because roaches are slow, and you end up giving away the map in these cases. Instead, he prefers a hatch first opening at higher levels, with defensive banelings

dApollo 15 hatch defensive banelings (ZvZ)

• 9 overlord
• 15 hatch
• 15 pool
• 17 extractor (pull out of gas after 50 gas
• 16 overlord
• 16 2 lings, queen
• 20 spine crawler (send 1 drone to build instantly at the natural)
• 20 queen
• baneling nest

He keeps 1 baneling on the high ground, 1 on the low ground, and 1 in front and depends on good micro to stave attacks off.

The tutorials were so popular, he’s apparently streaming now, so check that out.