The Content 1-Base Zerg:
The Content 1-Base Zerg style is usually the main style that I play. It starts off with a simple econ-minded build order, and simply reacts to whatever the terran does. My starting build order vs. terran is almost always as follows. Exceptions occur if I scout my opponent going very early rax (indicates early bunk) or if my opponent is very close (e.g., the 12 and 3 spots on temple).
From here on, the build order diverges depending on what my opponent does.
Since this is a 1-base strat, you need not worry about an early bunker. Although I have been involved in games whereby a terran off-bunked me behind the minerals in my main base, it was easy to spot (the SCV had to make the bunker) and defeat with drones. This happened in a KBK game (in fact, the bitch I was playing accused me of hacking and disconnected. after reporting this to KBK, they did absolutely nothing), where rushing occurs with greater frequency, but it still might happen. All you have to do is take drones off mining (as many as you think you need to prevent a marine from getting inside the bunker) and attack the marines and the bunker. If no marines have gotten inside your base, you may wish to block your ramp with 2-3 drones while the rest kill the bunker. That way, there is no chance for the marine to get inside. Usually, although this counter hurts your econ quite a bit, the terran's econ is similarly hurt because not only did he sacrifice economy for a cheese strat, but the cheese strat failed to do any significant damage.
If, by chance, you fail to prevent the marines from entering the bunker, you will have to stop your drones from mining any mineral patch within reach of the marine (has range of 4+1=5. bunkers give +1 range to units inside). An alternative use for your idle drones is to send them toward your ramp, to prevent any further marines from reaching the bunker. Marines are quite fragile, and will die easily to drone hordes. Even if the terran attempts to micro the marines away from the drones, you continually use the gather mineral command to get your drones to go toward the minerals (with a minimum of mutual interference), and when your drones reach the marine, quickly use the attack command to kill it. This should be sufficient. To kill the bunker, however, you will need either lings or a sunk. Lings will suffice for most bunkers that are not blocked by minerals or other structures; however, if the bunk is blocked off significantly OR if the SCV can repair the bunker with impunity (i.e., if your lings cannot micro to kill the SCV), you must resort to using a sunk.
This outcome will set you back quite a lot, and the terran will have succeeded in his mission: not only do you have to waste 175 minerals to make a sunk, you lost all the minerals you could have gotten but couldn't because the drones would have died to the bunk. In this situation, you have to know exactly what the terran is teching to, to survive. You must scout him. If he is going m/m, you need early lurks OR speedlings. In either case, you need gas. Whether you want to proceed with a 1 hat lurk strat or 2hat speedling strat is up to you and your particular style/taste. If your opponent is going mech, you can try either a 1hat mute strat or 2hat expo strat. In the 1hat mute strat, you must be careful not to lose a single mute, because that could cost you the game. In the 2hat expo strat, you will be relying on lings to protect you from massive goliath/tank army (and you're fucked if he successfully hid a starport from your lord and tank cliffed you - however, he'd only do that if he knows you are expoing, so try to make sure that he can NOT scout you). If you manage to survive midgame, proceed as outlined in the Late Game section.
However, there is a possibility that the terran is only making the bunker to fake you out; he may indeed have no intention of off-bunking you, and is just making a bunker to waste your drone's time. Although there is no fool-proof way to detect such treachery, I assure you, you will be returning the favor. In general, if you do not see any marines heading toward your base with your lords, you can assume that it is a fake. Alternatively, to be safer, you can send a single drone outside your base to keep watch out for marines. If none come, you know it's a fake. If they do come, however, you know to be prepared. Usually, the terran will cancel a bunker if he is faking it. It is also possible for the terran to send marines AND make 16416d316q a bunker strat fake. He would typically do this to waste your drone's time, and simply send back all the marines he has sent to your base after he knows you've scouted them. There is no way to tell what he is doing, so guess as best you can. After a while, you will learn to predict certain strats from certain people.
Vs 2rax m/m (Marine and Medic rush)
This is the standard terran strat. Usually, his build order will be a standard 10rax/12rax (or whatever it is nowadays) which will provide a solid econ without sacrificing the ability to fend off an early rush (you know that zerg rushes aren't what they used to be in 1.08). Although there are quite a few variations, they are mostly against expanding zerg, and so I will not explain them here; I will do so in a different section on expanding zerg styles. Since you are working off one base, you do not really need to worry about an early attack. Even if you have not prepared in the slightest for a pre-medic attack, your lord on his cliff will be able to give enough advance warning of an attack to prepare for it. If the terran is smart, he will send out his marines early with no intention of attacking you; rather, his hopes are that you prepare for an attack, thus keeping you honest, preventing you from over-powering. Unless you have a lot of early lings out in the middle already, you will not be able to take advantage of terran that do this. Also, you would never want to have early lings ready (unless you are playing a different style), because the probability that terran try to fake you out like that times the advantage it brings you minus the cost of doing it every game is negative (i.e., the costs outweigh the benefits). Although this is a mostly reactive style, you do have some leeway in dealing with this standard terran strat. You can either go speed/burrow (mostly against people that you know will rush) OR 2hat straight to lurk OR speed/burrow => lair => lurks OR 2hat => speedling => expo at another main OR 2hat/+1 lings => whatever floats your boat OR whatever else you have seen me do in my replays.
Although at first, this style seemed to always work, I have been informed that this style has become standard and that terrans often expect it from 1-base zergs. That's OK. If the terrans try to attack with less than 3 bats, their attack will fail. In this event, since the ball is now in your court, you can choose what to do. Usually, if the terran has not yet started his factory, your best bet would be to expand while going lurks. If the terran has already started his fact, you can do an expo=>mute strat or use your advantage to get an upgrade or anything else you think will work. Thereafter, proceed as outlined in the Late Game section. (If you really want a detailed explanation as to how to execute the burrow tactic, please consult the ZvT Tactics section in this strat guide, or, if that has not yet been completed, please consult the analog of that section in my Old ZvT guide.)
However, if the terran comes out of his base with like 4 bats, you do have a problem. Unless the terran perfectly walks over your burrow (and your burrowing/unburrowing skills are very nice), you will not win. Instead, you might consider waiting until after the terran has passed, and then send all the lings up the terran's ramp. A problem with this, however, is if the terran has 2 bats or 1bat/1med on the ramp. Unless you can run up the ramp and surround the bats, you have no chance. It would be wiser to retreat, put up a sunk or two in your main, and fight the terran army there.
Alternatively, you could attempt to separate the terran army by only unburrowing part of your ling army (the back part), so that they only engage the back prat of the terran's army. After owning up some marines, retreat, because the terran will surely stim and have the rest of his army group up to deal with your threat. It is possible that the terran may split up his army; half goes toward your main, half seeks out the lings you unburrowed. This would be ideal, and in which case you would use your lings to kill each half at a time. You could use your entire army to kill the 2nd half, or, after you run your lings (that you used to kill a few of the back of his army), and burrow them somewhere else that you know the terran will send units to. Unburrow again, and own. Alternatively, these lings could be used to probe the terran's ramp to see if it is blocked by bats. If not, goody. If so, oh well, nothing really lost. However, most good terran would not split their army up like that, and so you must know what else you can do. The point of unburrowing the back half or third of your army is to delay the terran's advance to your main base, to allow time for sunks or lurks. Delay the terran as much as you can.
Some of the time, the terran groups all of his bats in one part of the army. You might be able to use this to your advantage. For example, if the terran keeps all of his bats at the front of his army, you can simply unburrow your entire ling force after they have passed, own up all the marines, and run. If the bats are at the end of the army, unburrow before the bats get there, and run when they do get there.
If you manage to delay the terran enough such that his army is not able to do significant damage, all the better. However, it is likely that the terran might reach your base and do significant damage. Although your sunks may or may not yet be up, they might not be enough, even in conjunction with speedlings. The outcome crucially depends on your ability to micro so that his bats attack the sunk, and your lings attack his marines. If you die, you die. If you are merely hurt badly, you must realize that the terran most likely knows the extent of the damage that he has caused you, and will alter his strat accordingly. It is likely the terran will either choose this time to tech up to vessels and +1 or expand, and then go vessel and +1. If the terran chooses to expand, lurks on his cliff (and main base) might hurt him enough to even the game, but do not count on it. Against and expoing terran, you will need another base, as well, unless you attempt to go for an all-out attack, which might be successful. It depends how badly you have been hurt. If you are so badly hurt that you think NO MATTER how good your lurk cliff does, you will never be able to catch up, it may be wise to consider an all-out attack strat whereby you forego any future economy (including expansions) in preparation for a full-frontal attack (lings, lurks, and maybe even drones, if you are cute), or a ling/lurk drop in his main. The ling/lurk drop would be very successful if you are able to quickly get lurks to the terran's ramp to prevent marines from going up it. If the terran tries to send up his marines, he will get raped. However, if you are not able to block off his ramp with lurks, you must do the best you can to ensure that you do not lose units stupidly. Make sure all lurkers back each other up, and that there are no lone lurkers out in the middle of nowhere. If the terran does send his units up to kill your drop, be sure to make more units at your base to kill the terran's expo in the meantime. You must know that it is entirely possible for the terran to simply acknowledge that he cannot kill your drop, and instead engage in an all-out assault himself on your main, attempting to kill your base before you can kill his. In this event, the terran will almost certainly have more units in his army than you could possibly have at your mainbase. You cannot hope to defeat that army without mass sunks or zerg's secret weapon: hold-position lurks.
To effectively use hold-position lurks, the terran cannot have a sci vessel in that army, unless he is bad at keeping that vessel near his marines which often happens (and you should take advantage of that). If he has a sci vessel, your only hope is to have lurks positioned slightly back from your ramp. That way, any marines attempting to come up the ramp will get slaughtered. A terran counter to lurks on ramp is to dmatrix a marine, send it up the ramp, and while that marine takes the hits from the lurkers, the rest of the marines own it. The terran might even throw in a little dance for the dmatrixed marine, so that it does not die. Although this counter is impressive, and you can see it done in myriad replays, it is not perfect. For example, if you realize what the terran is doing, you will micro your lurks to ignore the dmatrixed marine, instead attacking the marines below or coming up the cliff. If you successfully accomplish that, there is almost nothing the terran can do, and you win. However, if you do manage to lose the lurks on the cliff, and your sunks/lings at your main are NOT sufficient to handle the terran army, you must do all you can to kill the terran before he kills you. The best way to ensure this is to send a drone or two to a different main base before the terran army reaches your base. That way, if your attack fails, you can still make a building (gas extractor) if your main base falls. Then, your opponent will have to first find your remaining structure, and kill it before he can win. In this scenario, you will be able to use whatever army you have left to kill his. Use hold-position lurks and burrow lings if you can. If your army is too puny to handle his, the best thing you can do is to use lurks on the ramp leading to your structure. Also, the terran might have a dropship. If you are not careful, he may circumvent your lurks and lings, and kill your structure with a drop. Also, the game could potentially end in stalemate if neither of you can build units and neither of you want to risk your army by attacking the other. However, there are more possibilities.
It is highly likely that the terran will have lifted some of his structures, which you cannot kill because you only have lurk/ling. It is also possible that one of these structures is a CC, which he can then use to mine minerals. In this event, the terran would use his remaining army to defend his base, or, more likely, send his CC to an island to develop an economy. You will not be able to stop this, and even if you are able to kill his remaining army, you will not be able to reach the island with your lurk/ling/gas extractor, and the terran will win. Therefore, it may be wiser to make a hatchery instead of a gas extractor. It may be even wiser still to make both; one gas extractor at one base, and a hatchery at another base. However, in order to pull that off, you need the money. Often, when a zerg is getting killed, he still spends his money on things that will be useless. What is the point of making 6 lings from 3 larva when there are 18 m/m killing your base? You must make sure to have at least 400 minerals. To do this, cancel any and all upgrades that you are currently researching, and cancel all eggs that you think will not cause an equivalent cost of damage to the enemy. You need 400 minerals: 50 for gas, 300 for hat, and 50 for an extra drone after you finish the hat. This way, even if the terran manages to escape a CC to an island, you still have a potential economy to win with. Defend your structures with all tactics described above.
There is also the possibility that the terran will utterly rape your drop, in which case you will lose. I cannot really describe micro, but most of you have a general sense of how to not lose units, and all of you can improve your sense of micro by watching my replays (assuming I have better micro than you, which may not always be the case).
An all-out attack does not have to take the form of a drop on his main base; you can also simply do a frontal assault. In this kind of attack, you will have to use your lurks to make sure that the terran cannot send his marines down his ramp. Although you might certainly kill a good part of his army, and the SCVs at his expo, he will most likely lift his CC, and wait for tanks until doing anything else. Also, unless you are truly gosu, you will most likely not be able to simply run up his ramp to take out his main base. In this case, you have stalled the terran, and you might have hope after all. Assuming the attack does not fail (if it does, you lose), you might be able to stall terran enough to make a good economy (maybe an expo, too) for yourself. If you do manage to get 2 bases (and assuming he does not drop them, which may ruin everything), you may yet beat him. As soon as the terran has a tank, he will use it to scare off your lurks. He will also probably have a sci vessel, so he will be able to quickly scare them away. Although you could micro your lurks backward away from the tanks further into his expo (to prevent his expo from collecting money), very often I get the impression that doing this guarantees the loss of your lurker, and that it may indeed be smarter to simply retreat back to your base or put the lurks on the cliff. The terran will fairly quickly have his two bases back up and running, most likely with +1 already. In order to compete, you will need a spire (for dropships and sci vessels) and upgrades (or defilers and no upgrades) yourself. The no-upgrade style is explained later as a potential Late Game style. It will be hard to win, but at least you have a chance. From here on, proceed as outlined in the Late Game style section.
Unfortunately, it is very possible to believe that the terran is doing a 2rax m/m opening but instead the terran is doing quite another opening. This can happen if you assume what the terran is doing based on the amount of marines you see or the timing of the terran's gas. Even if you directly scout two raxes at a time that would indicate a 2rax m/m strat, he may only be making those two raxes as a fake, or because he is simply doing an option-oriented strat (explained in the Terms section). You will react to the wrong strat, and will thereby be at a disadvantage when you discover his true strat. I will explain how to cope with a few variations of this problem below.
If you believe your opponent is doing a 2rax m/m strat and counter that with a speedling/burrow strat, but instead your opponent has gone for an early +1 upgrade, you have a problem. I think (not sure) that +1 weapon bats can kill lings in 2 hits instead of 3, and stimmed +1 marines are very dangerous. Your burrow strat will have cost you some economy and will not be as effective against +1 m/m. You will most definitely need lurkers because mutes suck against upgraded marines, and given that the terran has upgraded his marines, you should expect him to not make many tanks in the future. If you scout this fake early enough, you may have lurkers in time (or you may have them in time anyway, since burrowling=>lurker is not an uncommon style of mine), in which case you will be able to use hold position lurks in conjunction with burrow lings. However, if you do not have lurks in time (remember, you time enough time to set them up in the middle, too!!), you will be forced to do something else. Most likely, burrowed lings alone will not be able to take his army (unless you perfectly predict the path his army will take, and you have a massive amount of lings), and therefore you should resort to gayness. Attempt to send all your lings into his base after his army has left. Should that not be viable because of bats on the ramp, you will have to improvise. Use lurks on the ramp, if you have them on time, but if not, ready your lings to come in to your base to aid in defense while his army masses inside your base. Use sunk/ling, and whatever lurks you have to defend. If you die, you die; if you live but damaged, you will be at a disadvantage, and you may wish to proceed as outlined in the above section about what to do when seriously hurt. I can only say that if you detect your prediction error early enough, you will have the lurkers to survive. With time, you may become better at predicting specific strats from specific people, and more effectively microing your lord (described in Tactics Section) to see as much of your opponent's base as possible. However, if you do manage to survive relatively unscathed from your prediction error, then proceed as outlined in the Vs 1rax Ebay strat.
It is also possible for you to predict 2rax m/m when in fact the terran is going 2rax fake => early expo => m/m OR 1rax Early Expo. While rare, I have been involved in games in which the terran did this. Rekrul is especially prone to take advantage of reactionary zergs like me by going for a quick expo as terran. In these cases, it is usually not too hard to beat the terran. Although if a terran expos, he will most likely have m/m/bunker by the time your lurks are ready, you could potentially drop the terran. Lurks on terran's cliff can really mess up his economy, and take away the advantage he got from his risky strat. A dual lurk drop in his main and expo could be particularly devastating if the terran has not prepared for such. However, if the terran is at a position where lurking the cliff does not help much because the peons are out of range of the lurk, it may be wiser to rely on a frontal assault. In the face of lurk/ling, not even m/m/bunker always survives. One problem that you will encounter is that if the terran has two full bunkers with m/m behind them, your lings will attempt to go around the bunkers to kill the m/m while your lurks kill the bunkers. This could be fatal for you. Instead, you must micro so that your lings kill the bunkers, and then retreat after the marines inside die so that they do not futilely attempt to kill the m/m in the back. After the bunks are gone, unburrow the lurks and resend all your units to attack.
It is further possible for you to predict 2rax m/m although the terran is actually going a 1rax fact build or a 2rax fake=> fact build. Granted, you'd have to be pretty bad to make this kind of mistake, but it does happen. Fortunately, this mistake does not cost too much under an initial 2hat speedling/burrow style. Usually, the terran would be teching straight to dropship or sci vessel. In either case, I advocate getting some economy while teching to mutes. The speedlings will counter any drop attempt until the scourge arrive. Also, a quick sci vessel build is not that threatening, and it is usually a defensive strat to do while making an expo. I honestly do not know what to do in this case, because it has never happened, but I would imagine you could get both lurks and a spire or possibly expand in either case.
A more costly mistake would be to predict wrong when the terran is actually going 2port wraith. If you attempt to make a spire without putting up a den, he may catch you with your pants down. You should always make sure to scout your opponent to find out EXACTLY what he is doing, or else you could lose quite a few lords to wraith gayness. Many of you might find it more expedient to never take the risk and always make both a den and spire after you initially scout a 2rax strat and then scout him not using those raxes, instead making a fact. However, more appropriate scouting is the remedy I use. Not only must you scout with lords, you must know when to scout with lords. The interval between successive lord scouts should be about equal to the time it would take to partially complete a tech track switch. I cannot tell anyone the timing. It is something that I feel. The only way to acquire it is to play enough that you feel it on your own, or really critically watch my replays and observe my own timing.
2hat Straight to Lurker
Instead of countering 2rax m/m with speedlings/burrow, you may opt for a more standard 2hat in base to lurker build. The fact that this counter is so common does not mean that it is not good or suboptimal. Not all of my styles are radically different from the typical x17er. Rather, this is a viable strategy because it works. I have found no counter to the standard 2rax m/m rush whose benefits were not only greater than all other possible counters, but are also greater than the benefit of the counter given that the terran knows what you are doing. The price of optimality, it seems, is predictability. If one style of zerg were truly superior to all other styles, it would be the only style played (assuming everyone has the skill to play it). Since all zerg play it, all terran would learn how to counter that style, and would always perform optimally against it because they always know its coming. If that one style of zerg still performs better (defined as: winning a greater % of games) than randomly choosing a style during gameplay, then it will remain dominant. If that style performs worse than randomly choosing a style, then it is not truly the dominant style. It can be a dominant style (one of many), but it is not the dominant style (because no style is better than a random combination of all others). Therefore, it is important to know several different ways to handle a situation, because if you are known for only relying on a particular style, everyone that knows you will be able to counter you. Just as I perfected my speedling/burrow strat so long ago, the terrans that I mainly played against perfected a (or several) counter to that style. It is not bad that the counters to all my strats are known; it is far better than both my strats and their counters exist than neither existing, as without variation, subtlety and fun, starcraft would be doomed to be like AoE or comparable worthless "strategy" game. To prevent further digression, I immediately discuss 2hat straight to lurker strat below.
Since this counter can easily be mixed with (and often is) the speedling/burrow counter (e.g., straight to lurks after getting speedlings), the two may seem very similar, and I will not discuss it at great length. Although there is a different version of the 2hat lurker build that does get lurkers before m/m arrives, if you do a straight to lurker strat after a 12hat 11pool 11gas build order, you will not. Sometimes, it may be possible to have your hydra transform into eggs on your ramp before the m/m army arrives, but do not always count on it. Instead, you have to have enough speedlings to handle the m/m army in your base (but you do not need burrow). If you attack the terran army while it is massing inside your base, you should have luck with this. You must always begin the battle on your terms, instead of your opponent's. You could delay, and wait until the terran comes, to give more time for your eggs to hatch, but it is often not worth the wait. The terran would then have the advantage of having stimmed before the battle, and may have organized his troops in a way that would hinder your ling's attack (e.g., putting meds in front, or being in a clump instead of as a line, as they would have been had you attacked while they were still coming up the ramp). If your lings fail, you should still have two or more lurkers left to defend your drones, and another 4-8lings hatching. It is not common at all for the terran to do any significant damage at this stage. There may be some replays of mine in which I do lose a lot at this stage, but I believe it is always because I messed up for whatever reason.
If your opponent does try to assault your main and fails, then both your armies are relatively puny. Your opponent may have anticipated doing more damage and consequently started a fact or ebay or expo CC before the attack. You must find out which. If the terran went straight for expo CC after 2rax m/m, it is not difficult to research drop and drop his ass. However, if your opponent went for either of the other two options, you cannot really take advantage of it. If you were really unscathed from that battle, then you might want to try to expo, but that is not always the best idea. You can easily contain the terran no matter what he does with your lurkers, and hold position lurks may do a very nice job against those stupidly aggressive terran who attack before vessel, but that would not be too effective against a dropship.
Whether or not the terran attacked you or is still massing inside his base, you must scout him to see what he is doing. If he is expoing, get drop. If he is pursuing tech, find out which, and counter. Rationally, you should be able to expo yourself after lurkers, since just 3 hold position lurks can stay in the middle while the rest of the lurks and 12 lings protect you from drops. Usually, I have 12 lings in between my expo and main with 1 lurk or 1 sunk in my main, and 1 lurk or 1 sunk at my expo. That way, no matter what, I can have 12lings to counter a dropship quickly, wherever it hits, and since the terran would not scan where I hide the lings, he would be tempted to drop (and get raped). Your drop-raping ability greatly increases after you get a spire. About 90% of the time, I get a spire for scourge rather than mutes or guards. They play a key role late game, as many gosu terran continually drop expo after expo. With practice, scourge do not even require that much of your attention, because you simply call them up (Group #6), have them all attack the dropship you just saw with your lord or other unit, clone off 2, and have the rest stop where they are. Done. The only other thing you may wish to do is send 12 lings to intercept the expected drop-point of the dropship, just in case the scourge do not get there in time. Anyway, you now have 2 bases and a ling/lurk army (with scourge hopefully there or on the way). The terran has a sci vessel, some tanks, and lots of m/m, and is about to come attack you. This situation is remarkably familiar to the one encountered when you fast expo and the terran goes for m/m/tank. Therefore, you should see the Vs Marine/Med section in the Expo Zerg style page. Also, you may wish to peruse the Tactics section for info on how to beat Marine/Med/Tank/Sci with only Lurk/Ling/Scourge.
2hat speedling => expo at another base
This is a rather quirky counter to 2rax m/m. Essentially, you get a fairly good economy, and take your drones off gas after 100 gas (when you start speedling). You will need the extra minerals to make a 3rd hat. However, after the 3rd hat has been started, you should put the drones back on gas, or earlier if you think you need it. You rely on speedlings and micro to take out any terran threat. If, in the unlikely event that the terran scouts your expo, you will have a mobile force to intercept the units he sends to kill it. For a while, the terran will assume you are going a lair build, because that is what all zergs do. However, after he scans your main base, and sees that you have not started your lair, he will know something is up. He will scout both your natural expo and other expos. Even if you have already started your lair by the time that he scans your main, he may think something is fishy because your lair is not yet complete. He will probably interpret this as a sign that you are relying on either sunks and/or lings for defense, and may increase the proportion of bats that he makes. Every good terran should know that a perfectly executed m/m rush will always beat a 2hat in base => 3rd hat at natural zergy. They will know you cannot have enough sunks up in time for the battle. So. obviously, you will need to be able to survive against an army with a lot of bats without lurks or hydra or sunks or burrow. This does not exactly sound that fair (although it definitely sounds fun), and you will only be able to compensate with micro. Definitely try to run in the terran's base after his army has left if you choose this strat. Unfortunately, any terran who reads this guide or has common sense will know that someone who is relying solely on lings for defense has no choice but to try such cheese, and will therefore be prepared for it. You can only hope that he has forgotten. You can definitely survive if you make sunks in your main to augment your ling army, but that would leave your expo vulnerable. Also, the terran would be even more suspicious if you have a late lair and sunks inside your main base. This can be dangerous. To minimize the risk, instead of making all drones at your expo, you should most definitely make 2-3 hydra and have them ready to morph for when lurker aspect completes. They will be the only way to keep your expo alive (or, you could make 5-6 more sunks as I sometimes do). If you manage to keep both your bases alive, and if the terran has not lost any significant amount of units, he will either choose to expo himself, drop one or more of your bases, or attempt to slowly siege one of your bases while expoing.
If your opponent chooses to expo quickly after discovering your hidden base, and does not attack either, I think it would be safe to tech up to speed/drop lords or dual upgrades, or another expansion. I cannot hope to explain all of these possibilities within the time I have allotted to making this guide, but I hope that you all simply know that these are possibilities, and you may wish to try them all on your own. If you choose the speed/drop lord approach, you will probably be doing a harassment-based late game. If you go dual upgrades, you will probably be defensive so long as the terran does not expand again, and you will opt for a quick hive (for ultra or defiler to augment your lings - AND cracks!). If you get another expansion, you will be relying on a mix of army (lurk/ling/scourge - maybe broodling) to protect you from the terran. Also, the threat of your opponent dropping your bases is greatly reduced after you make a spire (which you should be able to afford off a 2base income).
However, if your opponent chooses to slowly siege one of your bases while expoing in the background, you have to play a little more carefully. In this situation, your opponent has decided not to attack until after he has vessel/tanks. He will assume that you will (and you will) have lurks by then. Then, he will send his army through the middle to right outside your ramp, and siege his tanks. You will not want to lose lurkers, so retreat them when you see him doing this. He will try to slowly make his way up the ramp. What you must do is scourge any vessels left unattended whenever you can, and slow the terran as much as possible. Use lings that you make at your expo to intercept and devour any reinforcements that the terran sends to his army. Although 1 tank/ 7marines is nothing compared to 24 lings, if they group up with the bulk of the army, it will be SOO much harder to kill them. You may wish to make sunks in your main if you have not yet done so. As the terran slowly approaches, and sieges his tanks within range of your sunks, you must prepare to attack. Make sure no groups are mislabeled, as that could result in a loss. As soon as the last sunk is dead, or maybe slightly beforehand, send all your units to attack the terran army including the 24 lings you have from your other base (send them up the ramp). Make sure to micro all scourge to kill all vessels, and since almost no terran I have seen has the skill to stim, micro, and recognize the scourge threat and retreat the vessels, he will most definitely lose them. Also, make sure to burrow your lurks appropriately (something you can only gain from watching my replays). You should be able to win with moderate-heavy losses, but the heavy losses come on both sides. You now have 2 bases (or 3, if you expoed again while the terran was sieging your base) to the terran's 2. It is a fair fight. Tech to hive if you haven't, get at least 1 queen if you haven't, and then proceed as outlined in the Late Game section.
If you mis-predicted your opponent's strat, and instead your opponent is going for +1 marines, you will have more time in which to get to lurker, but you will most certainly need that time, because sunks will not stop +1 marines. Definitely get lurks at both bases, and proceed as stated above. That is not too big a problem, as far as I am aware. If your opponent instead is going for a fact, this is also not too big a problem, because with sunks/speedlings, drops are no threat, and mass wraith is no threat since you will definitely have a den. As far as I remember, this 'counter' to 2rax m/m works better when they go something else :D.
2hat +1 speedlings
This is another quirky strat that I independently invented as a counter in retaliation for McNasty's constant use of a +1 m/m strat. It can be used in conjunction with burrow, and is quite like the speedling/burrow counter as discussed above. However, not everything is the same. For one thing, the terran will be wary and not wish to attack you after you have gotten +1. It is likely that the terran will increase the proportion of bats to marines in his army. Furthermore, he may realize that his best chance for success against this counter is either a quick bat rush (which can be countered by either running up his ramp or with a sunk and lings in your main) or a defensive expo strat. Since the bat rush is not of too much concern (you can only counter it with sunks, so it is not too detailed a discussion), I will focus entirely on what you do if the terran expands.
Since the terran will know a +1 ling style delays you from lurk drops, he will know that he will be more prepared for it if and when it comes. He will most likely throw down a bunker with bats in it at his expo, with farms (depots) for clutter, if he is smart. He will have a CC down, with his m/m army behind his bunker. Hopeless situation? So it would seem. Indeed, this is a rather tough problem, now that I remember it. Assuming your opponent does not expo too early (i.e., before he has enough marines behind the bunker to prevent your lings from streaming past it and into his main base), your job will be difficult. However, since he will not know of your strat until he scans it, you know that he will not expo for at least 1.5minutes (the time to build the CC, lift it, and place it at his expo). The time is even longer if you burrow a ling in the CC's spot. What you can do is either tech to lurks or tech to mutes. Mutes will allow an expo (since then he cannot tank your cliff) and later they will have harassment value. Neither is preferable to the other. Actually, I am embarrassed to say that I do not remember this strat anymore. But, I have gotten it to work, and once I remember, I will update this section accordingly. I'd be sorry for the inconvenience, but I am not obligated to write this, anyway :O.
Vs 1 rax => early academy (Bat rush or very early m/m rush)
This particular opening that the terran can do is not really too harsh a strat to deal with, as long as you scout it. You could go speedlings against it, but there are other ways. Although speedlings perfectly counter small numbers of m/m, they do not fare as well vs pure bat >=). You can always run up the terran's ramp if it is open, but often it is not. Instead, you might wish to do something cute like all hydra, and keep them surrounding your ramp so that neither bats nor m/m could survive the journey up. Or, you can just rely on lings, and make a sunk or two if it's a bat rush. Its all up to you. Also, it is pretty hard to mistake a 1rax gas terran strat for a 2rax no-gas terran strat, so you do not have to worry about that. You would only assume it's an academy strat if you saw an academy, so there is not much misinformation against this.
Vs 1 rax => factory => m/m/tank
This opening is not common at all against 1-base zergs, and I do not believe it is a problem, so I will not discuss it at this time. If, when I return to SC for the CompUSA tourney I see the need for a discussion of this terran opening, I will provide one. However, it should be noted that if you EVER spot a mistake in terran's wall-in, you may wish to take advantage of it by sending 16 speedlings in to end the game quickly. It is always good to keep your opponents on their toes.
Vs 1 rax => 2port wraith
Again, this is another opening without much relevance, since you will almost certainly have a den by going 1 base. The only thing there is to say is to hide your lords as best you can to minimize their losses. Also, after the terran fails to kill many of your lords because you are prepared, you may expand if you wish. But if you do, you must realize that the terran could easily put a tank with m/m on your cliff with wraiths for defense, so do so at your own risk. You may wish to expo at a different base, but you risk patrolling wraiths finding it and killing it.
Vs 1 rax => m/m drop
Yet again, this is another opening without much relevance. If I scout my opponent doing this strat, I opt for an early spire to stop all drops. Other than that, I do not change much about my strat. After spire, I usually expand and then get lurkers. You might be wondering whether there is simply nothing to talk about or if I am simply getting lazy. Although the latter may certainly be the case, since at 1.5 spacing this guide is already 17 pages in length, I believe it is the former because this is my main style BECAUSE it is impervious to most terran openings. It is a very safe style that is intended for use in a tourney or as the style you play in your initial 1-2 games against an opponent.
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