Starcraft II – Zerg Strategy: Ice Fisher [Guide]

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• Overview
• Build Order
• Strategy

SC2 is full of strategies and build orders that show just how many ways you can play this game with each of the three races. A lot of them are straightforward and are solid foundations for variations to suit different situations. There are some builds that cut corners to achieve certain goals, like getting units out early to attack or merely having enough to defend while you expand or tech up. As Zerg, there is such a build that had become popular when it first came out and is now one of the most common ways to play this race.

Overview

This is basically a delayed gas build that suits a very defensive style of play. Also known as the Spanishiwa Build, named after the player who popularized this build in the ladder, he had named it the Ice Fisher.

The point is to have just enough units to gain map control and defend the base while everything else is thrown into drones for a strong two base economy before building four extractors to catch up with gas. With the sudden abundance of gas, the Zerg player can then transition to gas heavy units like banelings and infestors, as well as take multiple upgrades and researches.

Build Order

9 Overlord (send scout)
16 Hatchery
15 Spawning Pool
18 Queen
20 Queen
20 Spine Crawler
22 Zerglings (send one to each watchtower)
40 (32 Drones) Extractor (x4)

Strategy

For defense, you have a few zerglings, spine crawlers, and extra queens to hold off early all-ins like 4-gates, 3-rax stim timings, and so on. With queens getting the range buff from patch 1.4.3.2, they’ve become even more viable for defense and Zerg players gained more reasons to play more defensively. The goal in the early game is to reach 32-40 drones as quickly and logically as possible for a strong early game economy.

Once you have made that many drones, it’s time to take all the gas and get lair tech, which is when the fun truly starts. You can get upgrades up to level 2, make mutalisks and infestors, get other researches, and so on. A myriad of options await those who reach lair tech, like baneling drops to accompany your frontal assault. Perhaps the good thing about this opener is that there are numerous variations that can be utilized once you put down the four extractors.

Scouting and map vision are crucial for Zerg, as in any case. But with the Ice Fisher, it’s even more important since you don’t have gas to get units to deal with harassment and all-ins without taking substantial damage. Taking all the watch towers at all times lets you see if there’s anything coming, while sending a zergling or overlord to scout regularly lets you gauge the unit count of the opposing army, as well as the unit composition. Once you know what his units are and how many there are, you can then build the according units to counter or overpower it. In a sense, the Ice Fisher is good for reactionary play.

Perhaps the most damaging thing that the opponent can do is to use cloaked units early on like banshees or dark templars. That is why being able to pop down a spore crawler is crucial once you get your gases. It would still be not viable to react to such attacks with overseer detection and hydralisks or roaches since it can never be done fast enough once you know that the enemy is coming to mess things up. Whether this happens or not, once you get your four extractors and perhaps your third base, the game becomes your oyster.