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iopq
United States1148 Posts
1 - 159 2 - ~175 3 - ~175 4 - 159 frames (150 if you set up autoboost) 5 - 177 frames (150 with manual boost) 6 - ~175 frames 7 - 159 frames 8 - ~175 frames 9 - ~170 frames left side minerals absolute dog water the gas mines 90% of normal speed too, so requires 4 drones for optimal saturation https://scmscx.com/map/Gz4YDDBh | ||
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iopq
United States1148 Posts
9 overlord if scouted first see overpool build cancel overlord 9 hatch 9 overlord 9 pool and scout if gate expand do ling pressure build instead 13 hatch 12 gas spend the larva on the second hatch asap pair of lings 16 overlord 18 lair started at 3:45 perfectly to give a free larva when lair finishes you add some lings here and there, protoss will send a zealots out between 4 and 5 minutes to scout and harass 23 overlord you can start a hydra den right after spire as well (and still go muta anyway, making two hydra against the first corsair is quite cheap and might confuse the Protoss) if you want to transition to 5 hatch hydra you would try to keep your larva around 2 on each hatch before throwing down a building, then building drones, then throwing down some additional buildings to achieve optimal hatchery timings if you made 8 lings you would drone up to 35 and have 31 supply of fully drones and then you would make hydra right in time for a speedlot push and if they are not making a ton of units you can go attack them at 7:30 with hydra that has speed and range | ||
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Slayer91
Ireland23342 Posts
Is it really necessary? I feel like you have two options 1. Go 9 hatch anyway, most protoss don't expect the timing, you probably won't be blocked off. VS Cannon rush I seem to be able to get 1-2 sunks up while my lings pop to hold it off with advantange, but not sure if this is consistent 2. Immediately put down overlord + pool + drone (350 minerals), Here I don't think you lose too much, I'm not sure if you will be supply blocked you will just lose a bit of mining time from delayed overlord popping, but haven't tested this recently. | ||
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Slayer91
Ireland23342 Posts
Are we maybe overvaluing this.. here's my thinking, everyone values it as '1 free larva' but its ignoring the fact we always get some fraction of a larva, AND the additional risk of a tiny larva block making the 'perfect' timing actually the 'worst' timing (lair spawns just before the larva would pop) 1. If we spawn lair randomly, we GAIN 0.5 larva on average (since lair will pop and spawn a larva, if you were 7 seconds into the 14.4 second larva window, you gain the larva instantly and reset the larva timer, meaning you 'gained' 0.5 larva 2. If we spawn the lair perfectly, we gain ~0.95 of one larva from it spawning just before lair pops 3. If we get the timing slightly off, (e.g. you got the first drone at 15.5 seconds or something or were blocked in ZvT for another 1 second after putting down pool on 10), you will LOSE 0.95 of a larva as the lair will reset the larva just after And perhaps most importantly, if for example I look at my replays on cwal.gg, I easily am 'wasting' 5-10 larva after about 10 minutes when my macro is just too shitty compared to a progamer that i eventually get supply blocked (forgetting or losing overlords) or am not macroing properly while fights happen, or i just simply forget one of my hatcheries e.g. 7th hatch at a 4th base or something I get that it's 'easy' to control the early game and advantages snowball, but if we are on a knife's edge with the build order, I think we could take additional risks, like delaying lair to 3:02 which may lose us an additional overlord against a wraith build, or greeding a late scout to get a 2:48 lair and then getting surprised by a bunker rush or a vulture build and you have no sunken out. | ||
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Slayer91
Ireland23342 Posts
If we get about ~70 minerals a minute, 1.1 minerals per second, we probably take about 1 min to scout two positions and return to mining at the natural hatchery, so the total cost of a scout should be about 70 minerals (which seems worth it). Additionally, our build will be delayed, probably reflected by a slower third hatchery, as we already have pool, overlord, and most of the money for a hatchery. BUT, if we compare scouting 20 seconds earlier, we get the drone back mining 20 seconds earlier [depends somewhat on natural hatchery, if it's late, maybe its a flat loss], so then you could argue the delay in the build is worth it if we gain useful information from an earlier scout e.g. -Gateway first opener, know where to go to pressure it or build more lings accordingly -Forge first opener, can delay getting 6 lings and more comfortably build drones earlier on cooldown and not worry about some cheesey stuff -2 gate or proxy gate opener, if you don't scout, or late scout, you are behind if the opponent will mix these in some percentage of games Overall, I'm playing with the scout timing but I find at least with overpool, I am frustrated with my scout timing being too late in cross positions to know how to play with my initial larva, I see most pros generally get 6 lings and try to adapt on the fly, maybe that's best I think it's possible to make the decision based on the fact that if you aren't delaying any critical build timing, and your scout will come back in time to mine the second hatchery, and earlier scout is not a flat mineral loss, but more of a delay? | ||
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Slayer91
Ireland23342 Posts
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iopq
United States1148 Posts
since it costs you nothing to cancel the overlord, just always make it you have TWO problems with going 9 hatch anyway: 1. You can't hold cannon rush if they are dedicated to it and make forge early 2. If they pylon scouted you they go nexus first and there's nothing you can do about it the second reason is probably the most important because nexus first Protoss is more powerful than hatchery first zerg | ||
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iopq
United States1148 Posts
On August 13 2026 22:57 Slayer91 wrote: Second thought: on the Lair/larva trick (aligning the timing to get 2 larva when lair spawns) Are we maybe overvaluing this.. here's my thinking, everyone values it as '1 free larva' but its ignoring the fact we always get some fraction of a larva, AND the additional risk of a tiny larva block making the 'perfect' timing actually the 'worst' timing (lair spawns just before the larva would pop) 1. If we spawn lair randomly, we GAIN 0.5 larva on average (since lair will pop and spawn a larva, if you were 7 seconds into the 14.4 second larva window, you gain the larva instantly and reset the larva timer, meaning you 'gained' 0.5 larva 2. If we spawn the lair perfectly, we gain ~0.95 of one larva from it spawning just before lair pops 3. If we get the timing slightly off, (e.g. you got the first drone at 15.5 seconds or something or were blocked in ZvT for another 1 second after putting down pool on 10), you will LOSE 0.95 of a larva as the lair will reset the larva just after And perhaps most importantly, if for example I look at my replays on cwal.gg, I easily am 'wasting' 5-10 larva after about 10 minutes when my macro is just too shitty compared to a progamer that i eventually get supply blocked (forgetting or losing overlords) or am not macroing properly while fights happen, or i just simply forget one of my hatcheries e.g. 7th hatch at a 4th base or something I get that it's 'easy' to control the early game and advantages snowball, but if we are on a knife's edge with the build order, I think we could take additional risks, like delaying lair to 3:02 which may lose us an additional overlord against a wraith build, or greeding a late scout to get a 2:48 lair and then getting surprised by a bunker rush or a vulture build and you have no sunken out. getting 4 mutalisks when you should have 5 will end the game if the Terran busts your two sunkens we're not talking about late game, we need to not die in 5 minutes besides, since the perfect lair is 2:47 when we try to target 2:48 it's just not possible off of an 11 hatchery, the timing is too close unless you just don't build the first drone for like a second the only way you can mess it up is if you go 11 hatch 10 pool, but just don't do that, go 11 hatch 11 pool 10 gas like a normal person if you're trying to go 4:18 lair off of a 3:08 gas with speed vs. Protoss that's going gateway expand, then yeah, you can click up a second early and lose the free larva but yet, pros DO time it out as you can hear them being annoyed when they lair too early! They are aware of the timings | ||
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Slayer91
Ireland23342 Posts
On August 15 2026 01:23 iopq wrote: it doesn't cost anything but larva to cancel the overlord, it's 0 mineral cost since it costs you nothing to cancel the overlord, just always make it you have TWO problems with going 9 hatch anyway: 1. You can't hold cannon rush if they are dedicated to it and make forge early 2. If they pylon scouted you they go nexus first and there's nothing you can do about it the second reason is probably the most important because nexus first Protoss is more powerful than hatchery first zerg I disagree on the second reason being more important - nexus forge vs forge nexus is 150 minerals difference in timing, is it one extra probe? 2? But having extra larva 9 hatch first vs overpool, should be able to compensate that. I don't see that as a big deal.. compared to literally losing instantly to cannon rush If 9 hatch dies to cannon rush for all the scout timings it's kind of useless, but if it's only when they pylon scout and scout your first (<33% of the time, since some send the probe back to mine and scout after forge), then it might still be ok depending on how the defence goes. My last game vs cannon rush the guy sent a second probe after forge to scout me 'last' and the rush was too slow, it would have been in time to stop 11 hatch easily, my second sunken survived to kill his second cannon without me trying to pull all drones to defend. If he scouted me second with the pylon scout it would have been a similar rush timing, but probably pylon first scout would have been too fast for me and I'd have to pull drones to fight it off which is probably not reliable. I'm not being negative actually, the idea to cancel overlord and go for 9 hatch when seeing no probe scout seems like a great optimisation if it's really "free" I have one problem with 9 hatch which is against 9 or 10 gate nexus builds, their zealot arrives in your base before lings are out (unless its hatch/pool/overlord?), and although you have a chance to win with ling all-in, your 3rd hatch is way delayed over overpool or 11 hatch because your mineral count is less and you can't maynard the drones to 2nd hatch vs zealot pressure.. so if it is bad vs gateway first AND first scout cannon rush the build is kind of not good, but im still experimenting with it. You usually scout late too (to minimize larva block) so it's very difficult to anticipate the pressure | ||
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Slayer91
Ireland23342 Posts
On August 15 2026 01:24 iopq wrote: getting 4 mutalisks when you should have 5 will end the game if the Terran busts your two sunkens we're not talking about late game, we need to not die in 5 minutes besides, since the perfect lair is 2:47 when we try to target 2:48 it's just not possible off of an 11 hatchery, the timing is too close unless you just don't build the first drone for like a second the only way you can mess it up is if you go 11 hatch 10 pool, but just don't do that, go 11 hatch 11 pool 10 gas like a normal person if you're trying to go 4:18 lair off of a 3:08 gas with speed vs. Protoss that's going gateway expand, then yeah, you can click up a second early and lose the free larva but yet, pros DO time it out as you can hear them being annoyed when they lair too early! They are aware of the timings Deleting a big wall of text that I posted originally as it won't be helpful, in summary, 2:50 lair only loses us 0.14 of a larva over 2:48 lair, while requiring less optimisation.. definitely non pros shouldn't worry about this It's not a free full larva, it's a fraction of a larva, that was the point of my post, if you you are 7 seconds late on lair you will get a larva pop 7 seconds before and then instantly instead of getting 2 larva (0.5 larva cost). Obviously, getting the timing perfect is great edit: I'm wrong on this, the anti timing is being early, so 2:48->2:55 is above average lair: gain 1->0.5 larva, 2:55->3:02 is below average lair, gain 0.5->0.0 larva, absolute worst timings would be 2:48.00 and 3:02.00, so 2:49, 2:51 etc is actually perfectly good and safe, but if anything this supports my argument that getting the timing to the exact second is not the biggest deal I manually checked from Jaedong replays on CWAL, if we get second drone on 15 seconds, like we should all be able to get, max 16.. 14 more larva spawns (14.4 x 14) at 3:36.6, next one at 3:51, optimal lair (63s) AFTER 2:48, if we are 16 seconds for second drone it will AFTER 2:49, safe timing is anything after 2:50 With all that said, its very clear that losing 2 seconds of larva timing won't cause you to lose to a 2 rax academy bust.. that's usually due to late sunkens and is supposed to arrive before mutas, just make 3 if you are scared, if you aren't a pro I'd say for go safety. Even IF you lost a full larva AND you insist that you must have 5 mutas instantly (neither of these are at all true in my opinion), you would just skip a drone to get 5 mutas instantly and not lose the game | ||
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