Reason why zerg is UP.

Wowww this thread is soo long and pointless.

Think about it this way:

Zerg vs. Terran.
Both of them build a worker: 50 minerals each
Now they both have 1 worker.
Zerg build a Hatch: 300 minerals.
Terran builds a CC: 400 minerals
Now the Zerg has spent 350 minerals total, and has 1 Hatch.
The Terran player has speant 450 minerals total, and has 1 CC and 1 SCV.
The Zerg builds a drone to match the Terran SCV: 50 minerals
Now the Zerg player has spent 400 minerla total for a new Hatch and Drone, and the Terran has spent 450 minerals for a new CC and SCV. Same units and buildings, the Zerg costed 50 minerals less.

 

You have 1 worker. You build a hatchery(-300 minerals) leading to a -300 total balance.
You replace the worker(-50 minerals) leading to -350 total balance and you end up with 1 hatchery, 1 worker and 350 minerals spent.

So you progress from:
State A: 1 worker
State B: 1 Worker+1Hatchery-350 minerals netting the cost of your hatchery to 350.

In your example you had 1 worker whom you had already paid for so your starting state was 1 worker, -50 mineral balance which you forgot to put into the equation

Smae thing with the lings, if you wanna make a baneling you just waste some extra time for it to make the zergling first. The net cost does not include replacing the zergling because from
State A: 1 zergling -25 minerals(half the 2 ling cost)
State B: 1 baneling(25m25g +25m for the zergling cost totalling 50m25g for the baneling).

Replacing the sacrificed unit gives you an extra unit so it does not count into the cost.



Edit: Do not forget that while Terran and Protoss can only make 1 worker at a time Zerg can make 3(not including queens), so you can get an early mineral advance which you use to cover up for the sacrificed workers. Even the argument that says "Zerg have to use up their production for both workers and combat units while other races have different buildings and have it easy" is quite wrong. Zerg build 1 hatchery and they get access to 3 larvae with it. That's equal to 3 buildings for other races and you can use them to pump out any kind of unit you want in a versatile way. It's like a terran player having a Command Center a Barracks and a Factory and being able to build Every unit from everyone of these 3 buildings in all 3 of them, so you need 3 fast SCVs? build 1 from CC one from racks 1 from factory. And those 3 buildings require much more minerals and gas than just a simple hatchery to be complete.

That doesn't mean that zerg are OP, quite the contrary, as of now they do seem like the weakest of the 3 races, but their problem is not their mechanics, their mechanics are fine as they are and pretty nice and versatile ones. Their problems are mainly numbers in build times and costs not only with zerg but with other races. We're stil on patch 1.0 so things will work out, let's see how the toss/terran nerfs end up for the zerg on 1.1.