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When playing against Protoss, everytime I see a Pylon in P's natural I recently have started to block the nexus with an Evolution Chamber - I scout at 10, drone till 14, place down a Hatchery in Protoss'es natural and immediately cancel it and place Evolution Chamber on the creep that remains after hatch cancel.
The cost is 75 for canceling the hatch + 75 evo cost which is 150 minerals + drone.
Now my questions are
- is it worth it?
- how Protoss should react?
I was talking with my friend after our game (replay here) where I blocked his Nexus first, he sent down 9 Probes in total, forced me to cancel my evo at the last second and placed delayed nexus and AFTER that he started his forge and gate.
I delyed him so much that my lings that came from 14 pool killed both of his warping cannons and several probes.
He says blocking Prototss is not worth it because he can just tech faster thanks to faster Gate and he sends down probes because he saw oGsVINES do this on his stream.
My reply to that is if teching faster was desired by Protoss than they wouldn't go Nexus before Forge and also sending down Probes means wasting more money than placing additional Cannon (for the number of 2) to kill the evo. His Probes didn't gather minerals from 2:15 till 3:07 and even then not all of them came back because he sent some after my drone.
So let's say it takes about 50 seconds to kill the evo (or force zerg to cancel it) with 9 Probes. If I'm not mistaken workers gather minerals at a rate about 1 mineral / second.
50 x 9 is 450 O_O lol. I have to be wrong? It's that much?
Anyway in my opinion it's much cheaper to warp in additional cannon to kill the evo.
I think that if Protoss can block with a Pylon for 100 minerals then it's worth to block him for 150 minerals - later nexus means several probes and a chronoboost less.
I want to also touch briefly on the recent (ASUS ROG tournament?) game where Mana got his Forge blocked by a drone by accident and hatch was placed down in his natural. I forgot who was his opponent but he also made a Queen and a Creep Tumor to further delay Mana.
I think it's not worth it to block with a hatch because even though I can make that Queen in time even when 2 cannons are firing at hatch then the 1st zealot kills the creep tumor before it can morph. Mana just made a huge, huge blunder in his game.
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I see machine do this all the time on his stream. I would say worth it as long as you're able to cancel. In machine vs TT1 machine was able to have his third started by the time TT1 finally got his natural down.
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I ALWAYS patrol probe in my nat that one whos building gate/cannons and stuff. I once did this long time ago to some protoss for lols and it worked pretty cool. Tried hat and evo versions (prefer evo). However I wonder if it's possible to block nexus even with probe patrolling, haven't seen anyone really do this to me yet?
To original question I dont see any reason to block with hatchery when evo does the same thing but for so much cheaper.
e: You can block it as long as possible with drone too if you got there in time for some reason.
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The replay included is BLUNDER from my side (yea im the protoss), oGsVINES does use probes to attack HATCHERY, not evo chamber, im pretty much sure that toss reaction for this is just wait for ONE cannon (im not doing 2 cannons EVER vs this) and he has.. a little bit delayed hatchery. With saved minerals i can both cannon zerg's neutral or just as author said tech faster - gate, double gas, cyber, then nexus.
I think zerg is falling way more behind after such exchange in protoss's neutral than his opponent.
edit:
On March 03 2012 14:51 Ryndika wrote:
To original question I dont see any reason to block with hatchery when evo does the same thing but for so much cheaper.
Actually you need to build hatchery first to get creep, so u can place the evo chamber 
In case ure talking about just letting hatchery finish.. well, the creep spread is huge wit hhatchery, so it delays toss nexus even further, coz he has to wait until creep is gone
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I usually patrol a probe to prevent nexus blocking but ive seen vines (i think) take it down with a 8 probe pull and i think it could be worth doing but it's probably a situational thing.
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Its not worth it for Zerg to hatch evo block IMO. It costs 75 mins to cancel the hatch, and 125 mins for the evo (75 + a drone). Toss doesn't depend on the early probes as much as Zerg depends on the early drones, also toss blocks our hatch for 100 minerals, 25 if they cancel the pylon, its not in the same ballpark cost wise this early in the game.
If your build calls for a drone scout you can delay the nexus with drone patrol, but even then thats only going to be 8-10 seconds or so.
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IDK.... I've been doing this on and off the past few days, and I think it might be worth it just to completely mess up the protoss' build. If his plan is to go forge-nexus or forge-cannon-nexus, you've delayed him hugely economically, and forced him down a tech path that relies less on gas (since his natural exp gases are not going to be available for as long).
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On March 03 2012 14:48 Mr. Nefarious wrote:
I see machine do this all the time on his stream. I would say worth it as long as you're able to cancel. In machine vs TT1 machine was able to have his third started by the time TT1 finally got his natural down.
haha machine did this to me the other day.
he let the hatch finish though which i'm not sure is worth it. as long as they don't get an evo up i don't think it's very good. if they get an evo up after hatch cancel ( as in you don't block it with a probe fast enough ) then toss is really far behind
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On March 03 2012 15:38 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2012 14:48 Mr. Nefarious wrote:
I see machine do this all the time on his stream. I would say worth it as long as you're able to cancel. In machine vs TT1 machine was able to have his third started by the time TT1 finally got his natural down. haha machine did this to me the other day. he let the hatch finish though which i'm not sure is worth it. as long as they don't get an evo up i don't think it's very good. if they get an evo up after hatch cancel ( as in you don't block it with a probe fast enough ) then toss is really far behind
Do you know if the hatchery has to be there for a certain amount of time before there's enough creep to make an evo chamber on? Or is it instant creep?
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Its instant creep. I've done the leenock hatch first with Queen and tumor and its strong.
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its instant, I remember reading a thread a while ago about canceling a hatch in a tosses base and building an evo and targetting a probe or something down with the broodlings.
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On March 03 2012 15:38 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2012 14:48 Mr. Nefarious wrote:
I see machine do this all the time on his stream. I would say worth it as long as you're able to cancel. In machine vs TT1 machine was able to have his third started by the time TT1 finally got his natural down. haha machine did this to me the other day. he let the hatch finish though which i'm not sure is worth it. as long as they don't get an evo up i don't think it's very good. if they get an evo up after hatch cancel ( as in you don't block it with a probe fast enough ) then toss is really far behind
It's worth it to let the hatchery finish if you're able to make a queen and plant a creep tumor out of detection range, it delays expo sooo much!
I don't think evo cancel is worth it, maybe on maps with a hard to get 3rd. Otherwise just grab it instead.
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if he does not have a canon building, I absolutly love doing it, just to screw with him.
If he does not have a pylon in range (rare but possible on some maps like antiga wall at the ramp), do it, let the hatch finish, build a queen, make that creep tumor, win 
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People don't realise how good this actually is...
8 probes for 90 seconds is 480 minerals lost mining for the protoss.
Furthermore, you have restricted him to 1 probe per production cycle (which then are not mining since they didn't get made) and halved his chronoboost output for the 1-2 minutes of the delay, and he very often has banked up several hundred minerals by the time you place the block, which he must belatedly spend on tech - essentially making his macro 'bad' for a minute or two, all which does further tangible, if hard to estimate, economic damage.
I think you could conservatively guess it at around 600-700 minerals of damage, assuming he spends his first chronos from Nexus 2 on probes.
Of course, if he chooses to NOT pull probes, it costs him nothing up-front, since the cannon is being made anyway. In this case however, his build has been completely changed. Instead of doing a fast-expand, protoss has been forced into opening 1-base w/ cannons (which is just a bad build), after doing bad macro for a minute. Z has 'forced' a certain opening blind which he can now prepare for.
This is aside from the psychological value of putting someones build and timings off - a HUGE factor at the lower leagues, and still relevant into Masters, and the bonus of scouting his activities (which are basically his responses to your block) for a decent period.
Knowing this, I feel it is totally worth it since:
1) The zerg's scouting probe won't return to mine for a long time anyway, and sometimes doesn't even survive. So this damage is not relevant to an analysis.
2) The cost of the drone leaving at 10 instead of 13 or so is about 40-60 minerals. The cancel cost is 75. The Evo chamber is 75. The drone's cost is 50. So it costs the Zerg no more than 260 or ~200 if the drone's death isn't counted.
3) The zerg is banking minerals for an FE anyway, but does not require the additional larvae output of his natural to attain main saturation, so this just delays what he was doing slightly, without changing the order of his build or doing knock-on eco damage (zerg's drone count will not change as he does not produce drones in a serial fashion and can't afford to use 2 queens worth of injects on drones initally anyway).
4) You have the option of doing an aggressive hatch block with creep / queen instead and opening up opportunity for an all-in.
5) Great psychological evener if the P has cannoned or pylon blocked your natural.
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This has happened to me before so now I keep a probe ontop of my nat to try and avoid this, but if you can do it I think its worth it because if the protoss has come into the game trying to do some kind of 2 base all in (which most do atm) it will delay the timing a fair bit rendering it less effective and easier to defend for the zerg.
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The evo chamber is definitely worth it especially if the protoss put his forge kinda late
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well i think the evo works, but its easily blockable with 2 probes, the hatch if not canceled asap is probably to much of an investment. Getting it up fully just for some larva behind the wall feels not worth it, only on a mindgame level.
Personally i switch to a one base tech push if the map doesn't allow me to expand at another spot, if they let the hatch stay for to long. Can always expand later, after i killed their main.
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125 mins for the evo (75 + a drone)
Stop saying that please it sound retard. Did you ever say "oh a barrack cost 150 + mineral scv would have harvest if he wasnt building"? Or do a gateway cost in fact 160-170 cuz of probe travel time? nop. Drone cost 50 , Evo cost 75, and thats it t_t.
More on subject, as a protoss player, an hatch/evo block can be very disturbing if, as DrTZ said, forge is late (you owned his attempt to nexus first/ he went for a 15 forge (maybe 14)) ; but, in my opinion, its a waste of money for zerg to try so if the forge already popped out or is about too, cause P will put his usual cannon anyways and use this delay to advance in tech/army, wich will cause an earlier/stronger push to defend if you then go for 3 hatch, or even a faster tech harass (stargate/dts/wp).
So I wouldnt do if forge is completed or about to, but definitively in any other case.
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On March 03 2012 23:38 Tikan wrote:Stop saying that please it sound retard. Did you ever say "oh a barrack cost 150 + mineral scv would have harvest if he wasnt building"? Or do a gateway cost in fact 160-170 cuz of probe travel time? nop. Drone cost 50 , Evo cost 75, and thats it t_t. More on subject, as a protoss player, an hatch/evo block can be very disturbing if, as DrTZ said, forge is late (you owned his attempt to nexus first/ he went for a 15 forge (maybe 14)) ; but, in my opinion, its a waste of money for zerg to try so if the forge already popped out or is about too, cause P will put his usual cannon anyways and use this delay to advance in tech/army, wich will cause an earlier/stronger push to defend if you then go for 3 hatch, or even a faster tech harass (stargate/dts/wp). So I wouldnt do if forge is completed or about to, but definitively in any other case.
What are you talking about? You lose the drone for the rest of the game, the SCV or probe simply returns... and yes, you CAN find calculations how much mining is lost by an SCV building a rax instead of mining, it's just too insignificant to matter... losing a whole drone though, that snowballs quite quickly.
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On March 03 2012 23:38 Tikan wrote:Stop saying that please it sound retard. Did you ever say "oh a barrack cost 150 + mineral scv would have harvest if he wasnt building"? Or do a gateway cost in fact 160-170 cuz of probe travel time? nop. Drone cost 50 , Evo cost 75, and thats it t_t. More on subject, as a protoss player, an hatch/evo block can be very disturbing if, as DrTZ said, forge is late (you owned his attempt to nexus first/ he went for a 15 forge (maybe 14)) ; but, in my opinion, its a waste of money for zerg to try so if the forge already popped out or is about too, cause P will put his usual cannon anyways and use this delay to advance in tech/army, wich will cause an earlier/stronger push to defend if you then go for 3 hatch, or even a faster tech harass (stargate/dts/wp). So I wouldnt do if forge is completed or about to, but definitively in any other case.
Well for the purposes of counting resources it's as if you invested 125 (75 + one drone). Don't see what's wrong with that.
That's like saying archons don't cost any resources. Technically true but practically unhelpful.
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EPT
