Heya all, hit a huge wall when I jumped from silver to gold and have been stuck here for ages. Mostly I’m finding zerg is a really rough matchup and looking for a general strategy suggestion. Most games (as in probably 80% of games in the past few days…) seem to be against 12 pool at the moment, I can hold that but then there are a ton of lings suppressing expand. If I make units to stop that they can pull ahead behind it, if I don’t make enough units I die…
In a macro game I find that toss is hard to keep up with Zerg’s potentially huge economy, and end up just dying. Typically macro is my thing since I’m trying vibe’s Bronze to GM build, but I can’t make it work any more against Zerg.
Typically most of the builds in-between this, roach timing or all-in etc or skewed builds like mutas I don’t have as much of a problem with as my scouting is at least good enough to spot and respond to them, but haven’t seen one of those in a while.
Wondering what you guys would recommend as a general style and philosophy for taking on the PvZ matchup in lower leagues. Ideally macro-focused because harass is hard if you are a gold pleb
Bad news for you — It keeps getting worse.
I just two base all-in every game. (dts, mass Adepts, immortal sentry).
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This matchup I find broken at this level.
How I got out of it? play 2 bases all ins and or canon and proxy.
This reverses the problem and forces zerg to stay on 1/2 bases and defend with units.
Also forces you to attack and scout early.
Other good thing try to play zerg a little to find out why you loose.
BTW I am D2.
GL GL
Hey mate, it sucks to get stuck in this game, but I am sure you will find a way. I got out of gold just using Vibe’s and learning how to defend cheeses (scouting a lot is crucial, and reacting to what you scout even more so). Also don’t be afraid to drop batteries if you see an early attack incoming or if the Zerg is in the same amount of bases as you (if this happens, you are ahead, but they are probably getting ready to attack you, or they have a hidden base). In Plat, I had an easy time in PvZ by doing a bit of oracle harass into skytoss (5-6 voidrays plus carriers) with Zealots and Storm (or DTs, as the overseers are easy to snipe with your golden armada). Vibe does play this style in his Diamond 3 to Diamond 2 video if you are interested.
You should post a few replays of macro games on the all things protoss reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/allthingsprotoss/) you will find a lot of people willing to help you there. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I would put money on the fact that your macro is slipping, mine does a lot and I’m in Diamond. People in Masters even make mistakes on macro games, don’t get discouraged! 
GL HF!
Key to remember in PVZ is you can (and must) do eco damage without doing actual damage. Just forcing army early game prevents them from droning unchecked up to 4 base saturation. Unlike toss every army unit they make is one less worker. Twilight openers are very strong since zerg has to respect your early push by making roaches or banes or else they take lethal damage. Harstem has a good opening you can practice on his youtube called the $65,000 build.
If you take this style the game runs in three phases.
Phase 1- Adept Opening - Try to hit with 8-12 adepts between 4:30 and 5 min. Practice keeping up probe production, taking a third, and getting immortals out during the attack. Helps to post a probe at your third right before the attack so you can quickly pop back and start the third between rounds of shading. Don’t feel like you have to kill too many drones, forcing roaches is good enough, but if you get a good shade feel free to commit.
Phase 2 - Take third and prepare an immortal sentry push. As soon as the adepts back off, warp in a round of sentries to start banking energy, get blink (chrono), plus 1 weapons (chrono), extra gates, and saturate your third. The immortals and sentries you made should keep you safe from a roach counter which is the most common way to die, if you’re getting killed by that you missed immortal production during the attack, keep practicing. Try to hit a timing of sentry immortal blink stalker when the upgrades are done. Use an occasional hallucination to scout for a tech switch from the zerg, blink should keep you safe from mutas, if you see muta make stalkers and surround your base with observers. Goal of the push is to force more army, maybe kill a base, potentially end the game.
Phase 3 - take a 4th and start Templar archives + Storm + weapons 2 around the time you push. If the attack isn’t going to kill the opponent poke a few times to scare them into over making army and then back off. Go into 4-5 base macro play with sentry and storm. Drop a stargate for the skytoss transition and start 3 weapon upgrades plus 1 air weapons.
To practice, the adept opening should be identical each game so just practice the first 5 mins over and over again against easy A.I. Phase 2 and 3 depend on the effectiveness of your opponents response. In gold almost all your games will end in phase 1, by diamond players will defend but often over respond leaving you with an eco lead into the mid game.
Good Luck.
Same with PvZ. Roach/ravanger allins every match…