It seems to me that z v anything is rather linear in terms of strategy choice. I'm a silver player that plays zerg. Almost every single one of my z v z games that i won was due to ling and bling pressure and no one ever techs to lair tech 'cause doing so would be wasting 6 lings or some blings, it seems to me there is no other option in zvz other than to spam ling and bling. Also in z v p or z v t the standard build is mutaling as roaches and hydras suck against both t and p and ultras get raped since the patch. Is it just me or is zerg the most linear unflexible race there is? I've tried different unit comps but mutaling works best.
I definitely think you can do other things in ZvZ, despite the fact I almost always go exclusively ling/bling, but you need a strategy to defend against speedling/bling. 1. Speedlings alone really aren't enough if the opponent is microing their banelings to not auto attack, and escorting them with the speedlings (to prevent a few lings from sniping them). 2. Mutas alone really aren't enough, because timed right the speedlings will get to do massive damage to your base, and you can't retaliate in time because the lings will win by razing long before you can.....and by the time you have enough to retaliate, they probably have air defense in place. 3. Roaches are one of the easier alternatives, provided you have a natural choke to hold position in. Of course, you need to accept the fact the ling player will get their natural expansion first and early map control. The real hard part about roaches imo is the fact you need a lair for speed, making it harder to do a ling/roach build that can get out away from your base (lings to run ling interference for the roaches, which should pick off banelings as the speedlings fall back when they get close). So #3 is the most viable and probably the toughest for ling/bling to wipe out early, giving the game time to progress. The only caveat is #3 needs to keep a good eye on their opponent, because if they fail to build enough roaches (i.e. fortifying their resource train too much) or fail to get in a blocking position, they will be overwhelmed/have lings flood through their choke before they can stop it. At the same time, they want to make sure not to lose too much ground letting the ling player saturate their expo and/or hyper-expand (i.e. double expand). #2 needs banelings IMO. Especially if it is 1v1, since the ling player is going to be keeping close tabs on you. #1 could get away without blings (the assumption being you want to divert your gas to something else, e.g. roaches/mutas/hydras), but you are still going to need something besides speedlings to defend before the speed/bling player moves to attack. Perhaps well placed spine crawlers, but they need to be in a place difficult for the banelings to get to (on a cliff overlooking the path to your ramp/choke, behind minerals, etc) and you should be mindful of having a few drones/lings to physically block banelings trying to get their, so at least some micro or detonation has to take place to open a path. You could probably make this work for #2/#3 too. And of course, you could simply tech up slowly. There is some argument imo that games should being with a slow progression from tier 1 unit standoffs to tier 1+ 1.5 mixes, etc. If someone's micro is significantly poorer then the game won't progress very far, but otherwise it should. edit: oh, as for my comment about what I tend to use, that has to do with what I view to be the immense flexibility for ALL 1v1/2v2/3v3 matchups of the particular (rough) build I use. I deviate more for fun and certain situational factors, but ultimately I just think my standard is a very strong generic build for most any game. OR you could always use the dreaded Queen + baneling build to Infestors! It's MADNESS! Or...is it?! Maybe its the rum talking but it seems like it could be just what you're looking for!
