Early pools are what got me playing zerg, I watched players like Hyvaa and Life using early pools to outright win or dictate the pace of the game. It was exciting to watch and micro intense (the way the game should be)
But it feels early pools have fallen by the wayside, discarded for the next hyper greedy but "safe" build.
I have a deep and ingrained love of the early pool and I wish to learn the further intricacies of the early pool to see whether the collective mind of TL can help me achieve my early pooling goals.
I set myself the challenge recently to get into masters with only pools before overlord, I understand perfectly well that early pools are very "coinflippy" but I after watching some more Life replays I'm more convinced that this could be a viable way of playing.
He loses that game so perhaps not the best example, but he goes on to win the whole tournament with similar ling centric early pools/early agression.
I feel what Life showed in that example is that early pools don't always mean all in, but stop greedy builds and force mistakes/changes in other peoples play style.
Exhibit B; Hyvaa 6 Pool vs Terran
and
We all know and some of us love Hyvaa, he is the epitome of zerg cheese but the most "coinflippy" in playstyle.
Now there's plenty more variation in early pools rather than just 6,7,8 ect pooling, there's gas timings when you transition when you go all in what do you do depending on scouting even down to where you place your pool. What if you can combine the pressure and transition of Lifes playstyle and at the drop of a hat be able to go as all in as Hyvaa?
Here I would like to show Exhibit C Catz.
Catz is very well known for his distinct style of play mainly revolving around proxy hatcheries and other various shenanigans, Catz is forcing a response and setting the tone of the game, whilst allowing the option (should he see a false response) to go all in.
The dilemma for me is that my self imposed challenge requires me to do pools before overlord rather than the more economical style that Catz plays thus disallowing me the happy medium between all in and transitional play.
Another 6 pool but from Losira (Kangho)
As the casters pretty much state, it's a one build wonder if they don't go CC first it's gg, and if they respond well it's usually gg if they go CC first on the high ground.
So I will stop procrastinating and get to the meat of the discussion/my question.
Will it be viable for me to get to masters using pools before overlord exclusively? How would you play under these constraints? Go for more life transitional cheese or go for the more "coinflippy" Hyvaa style? Now this question goes out to the players of Terran and Protoss, how do you respond when you see an early pool? The more information I get upon this the better I can respond and the more likely I can exploit any flaws.
My end goal is to achieve masters and to have created a compendium of early pool builds and go very in-depth with the execution and provide a lot of replays.
maybe. I would guess though, that the lower on the ladder you go, the less likely you are to see cc first from terran. Also you're more likely to see reaper, which will destroy an early pool.
I feel what you are talking about. I kinda play protoss as a main race, but I often find myself zerging around. And the most success I get with zerg is with early pools that reacts correctly after the first few set of lings == whether to macro or ling more (or aim for certain timing push). It is so much nicer to be able to react on something concrete instead of blindly macroing and hoping you did not miss a pylon that warps shitloads of shit into your backyard before proper preparations. Hellions are pain without speedlings, so lings are nice early in the game. And disturbing the basic macro-oriented pace of both protoss and terran helps to adjust your play correctly anyway. Beating master players is reasonable with my poor skill level, so I believe your goal seems quite achievable even without Life-level skills Anyway, this being said, I would be happy to hear about good builds and reactions too.
An early pool dictates a lot of different thing, it dictates that you can't move out of your base for a set period of time (if you hold) because the unit count is higher for the early pooling player. It also dictates certain tech paths (in the case of the Catz hatch block) ie they have to get a siege tank to break out.
It also keeps them on watch because what's the best way to follow up an "all in" with another all in?
The early pooling player also dictates the proportional response (in the case of protoss) for If I keep building lings to a critical mass I can overrun a "secure" cannon in the mineral line.
My question was more looking for tips tricks and responses from other players, rather than someone telling me what I already know (in the case of a 6pool) that early pools are a coinflip.
While sending early lings against Protoss that opens with a forge at their natural might seem like a situation where you are ahead because they can't keep the lings out of the base, what I've found the smart ones do is make a cannon in the center of their main mineral line and they will use their probes to surround the cannon while it is constructing. I have found the best response is too use your first lings to get as many probe kills as possible before the cannon finishes. Then back off and while using your initial lings to clear outskirt buildings and dont forget make a drones after your initial lings and while you wait for the queen. Once your inject pops ull have seven larva to make 14 zerglings. Those 14 lings make 20 counting the initial 6 and you run those 20 lings into the Protoss main mineral line to kill it off. Players usually expect you to be using all your macro on drones to catch up. Even if the Protoss does a good job anticipating your attack and surrounds his cannon pre-emptively to protect it you can still back off and pick off any buildings he has tried to put up like his new forge for example. Anything not in the range of the cannon is fair game
Please for give my scrub league ignorance but, as a Terran player, wouldn't the Terran going 1rax FE be safer than a CC first build if the Zerg is going early pool? It seems you would have the rax down sooner and thus faster marines to fend of lings? Any insight is appreciated!
Uhmmmm. pools before overlord are really really tricky lol and it probably wont be worth it in the majority of the games to go for macro games. If you are planning to find a more macro style of early pools you may want to watch Reketan.
Reketan, a master league player, uses a lot of 11 overpools as a macro style of the early pools. It is very rarely he will go 15pool or 15 hatch, even on large maps. I honestly have no idea how he does it but he does it very well and wins a lot of games from it.
It used to be that the early queen from a fast pool could be used for a macro style, esp since the other player would have to react for an 8 pool timing and cut down on eco.
You can get into masters going 9-10 pool vs every race. assuming you know how to macro out of it. and be able to micro your lings and expand. For example: zvt vs cc/rax rax/cc first
queen 23ov queen 31-32ov 44ov 44 double gas 42third base 52 roach warren/ov 60 evo wall off double ov (make 4 roaches for map control, to allow droning of third vs helions) take 3-4 gas (third should be mostly saturated) get 1/1 macro hatch, 4th base, react.
Well at least you made me lol. I dont see that an early pool only way of playing will get you anywhere. Dont get me wrong, there used to be times, when you could get GM with a nice 6 or 7 pool, but people in higher leagues evolved making this significantly harder to pull off. I do believe though, that in a tournament setting having a good early pool to mix things up with and one or 2 other all ins that are really well planned helps you succeed much more than pure macrostyles alone, no matter how good they are. And why is this? Because people all in soooo much, thats why.
I don't feel like an early pool is bound to dictate anything. We aren't palying on steppes of war. (on 4 player maps 6-9 pooling is downright impossible)
On October 03 2013 22:13 monomo wrote: I don't feel like an early pool is bound to dictate anything. We aren't palying on steppes of war. (on 4 player maps 6-9 pooling is downright impossible)
dunno, but with ol and drone scout you can pretty much early pool on any 4 player map: OL to one base, drone to the other, lings rallied to the middle of the map. once you scout the opponent you direct the lings in the right way. that's how zergs killed legions of nexus first players on whirlwind...
@NoSoldier I showed pro player examples to prove the viability of early pools and the fact they're build order wins vs most greedy styles of play. You seem to overestimate how strong a player in masters is/are for I have already beaten some with early pools even against "safe" builds. But your point is true players can hold 6/7 pool much more commonly than back when FametoFlames/ActionJesus were 6 Pooling around in GM.
Hence why I change the goalposts to pools before overlord, if I asked anyone here if a 12 pool was a all in build I doubt many would say yes.
@BuiBui, the opener you showed is pretty much the same as the STLife one except different hatch timings, I've used it and has given me a good position into the mid game.
I'm around two weeks in to doing this challenge now, I'm facing mid diamond players on EU and I'm maintaining a 60% win rate so I would say that shows some promise for the early pool.
I think I've come up with a good adaptive build that uses an early pool against Zerg vs Terran it's a 100% win rate vs CC first and is "macro" should I see a rax first. I will post the build if requested/after I've played it enough and got into masters. (I want to make sure it's a solid build)
The common consensus is to do as late as possible pool like the 11 Pool or 12 Pool put pressure on and macro out of it. Now I would agree that this is perhaps best against Terran due to the defensive nature of Terran, but I feel against Protoss any all in is more likely to succeed.
ZvZ comes down to pool timings who gets speed and baneling control.
I'm still looking for people of other races to tell me what they do as a response to seeing an early pool.
There are safer ways to get to a position where you can win from than early pools. Ofc you beat masters with it, because they are retarded, but you wont downright end it with 6 pool and 1 minute later. You gain economic advantage through forcing repair/getting worker kills, but usually, unless you have an "BO win" you wont win downright with the 6 pool. Therefor early pools are not the general solution as possibly discussed in a brazillion posts before.
You seem rather hostile towards the early pool? I don't understand the stigma attached to cheese and all ins, they're an exciting variable to the game of starcraft. What would you rather watch/play 10 minutes of building things then perhaps another 10 minutes of drops and attacks.
Or attacks right from the start and continuing on?
The game should play as whoever can micro and macro at the same time the best wins, rather than who can macro up to a 200/200 deathball and position it well.
I agree there are safer ways to get to a position where you can win, but nothing is exciting to play/watch than an intense micro battle from the start with the person with the better micro gaining a lead for the mid game.
We're not discussing the 6 pool, I highlighted that out almost from the outset as a build order win possibility and only that, I'm looking for the build that makes both sides micro the best they can to decide who gets either an outright win or a good lead in the mid game.
I'm really looking for non zerg opinions on how they respond, so I can better formulate my builds for various reactions.
On October 04 2013 01:37 Ephemera wrote: @NoSoldier I showed pro player examples to prove the viability of early pools and the fact they're build order wins vs most greedy styles of play.
When you 6 pool you have no control over whether or not you win, only the ability to capitalize on an opponent who executes poorly. Even vs greedy styles of play.
Also, MKP holds two straight 6 pools with CC first on low ground, without scouting. First game Dimaga threw, though.
Why is everyone so hung up on the 6 pool? I'm back after watching the second replay when MKP holds, he held because Dimaga made some huge mistakes with his 6 Pool, firstly he walked his lings close enough to be seen by the SCV constructing the barracks, obviously a big mistake which allows MKP to start building a depot.
Secondly he doesn't do a very good job of allocating what is attacking what, the drones are attacking the depot losing that crucial DPS from the lings. If he had from the start allocated 3 lings to the building depot he would've broken through before the engi bay went down and even if the engi bay went down he would've had enough surface area on the barracks to out DPS its construction.
Dimaga made mistakes in that replay that was not a well played 6 Pool.
Also it's MKP he is playing, if anyone is to hold a 6 Pool with CC on the low ground it would be MKP.
On October 04 2013 02:54 Ephemera wrote: Why is everyone so hung up on the 6 pool? I'm back after watching the second replay when MKP holds, he held because Dimaga made some huge mistakes with his 6 Pool, firstly he walked his lings close enough to be seen by the SCV constructing the barracks, obviously a big mistake which allows MKP to start building a depot.
Secondly he doesn't do a very good job of allocating what is attacking what, the drones are attacking the depot losing that crucial DPS from the lings. If he had from the start allocated 3 lings to the building depot he would've broken through before the engi bay went down and even if the engi bay went down he would've had enough surface area on the barracks to out DPS its construction.
Dimaga made mistakes in that replay that was not a well played 6 Pool.
Also it's MKP he is playing, if anyone is to hold a 6 Pool with CC on the low ground it would be MKP.
And if MKP had sent a scout after depot instead of playing 100% in the dark, there'd be no chance in hell. 60~ minerals to prevent the occasional auto-loss is a pretty good trade.
EPT
