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Ephemera
United Kingdom66 Posts
My ZvZ build currently can win vs a 15 pool even when they see it coming, I say can because I feel like the other zerg microed this badly and didn't cancel his expo for more minerals. http://ggtracker.com/matches/4178725 My ZvT adaptive cheese also has started to bear some fruits. But early pools against Terran are the hardest to pull off I'm starting to wonder whether a roach rush might perhaps be the best answer. | ||
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NoSoldier
Germany84 Posts
the more i read into your post, the more i am convinced you are just some gold level player (skill wise), who tries to find some simple solution. Low masters players (im only midmasters for that matter, so im not much better either) simply lack the knowledge (not necessary to the pure reaction to an early pool though, but afterwards) to appropriate and im gonna use a word you are probably gonna love "counter" your opening. Neither do they have anything close to refined mechanics, nor do they know how to pull of a macro game of any sort. They win through luck (so do i for the most part), and so do you. He doesnt need 2 cannons in his mineral line, he needs one. A good protoss player will pull his drones to defend and not lose a single one in doing so. That is called micro. Now you say he loses mining time, which in a sense is true, but even if you were to build drones after your initial 3 sets of lings, you will wind up slightly behind. Unfortunately and without ever taking a look at those replays provided he will answer with an all in (which btw doesnt fit into his economical focused opening btw) to try to finish you off. You answer with fast units and now you wind up even. Thats just an answer on how wrong an answer can be. Any early pool against any sort of remotely good player will have to deal damage. This damage wont necessarily be dealt from your initial lings, but from his wrong reaction to it. Work on your macro <.< | ||
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NeThZOR
South Africa7387 Posts
On October 03 2013 06:58 Jeka wrote: 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  My reaction to a 6 pool today allows me to state that this won't be so easy most of the time. I sim city near my cannon(s) after the lings destroyed my forge and by the time all those lings come I have a Mothership Core and a zealot or 2. Just cover the chokes with a zealot and pick the zerglings off with the MSC. What I love about the MSC is that it helps the toss to establish and expand after being 6 pooled, whereas in WoL it was much harder. On October 07 2013 06:22 NoSoldier wrote: Ephemera, the more i read into your post, the more i am convinced you are just some gold level player (skill wise), who tries to find some simple solution. Low masters players (im only midmasters for that matter, so im not much better either) simply lack the knowledge (not necessary to the pure reaction to an early pool though, but afterwards) to appropriate and im gonna use a word you are probably gonna love "counter" your opening. Neither do they have anything close to refined mechanics, nor do they know how to pull of a macro game of any sort. They win through luck (so do i for the most part), and so do you. He doesnt need 2 cannons in his mineral line, he needs one. A good protoss player will pull his drones to defend and not lose a single one in doing so. That is called micro. Now you say he loses mining time, which in a sense is true, but even if you were to build drones after your initial 3 sets of lings, you will wind up slightly behind. Unfortunately and without ever taking a look at those replays provided he will answer with an all in (which btw doesnt fit into his economical focused opening btw) to try to finish you off. You answer with fast units and now you wind up even. Thats just an answer on how wrong an answer can be. Any early pool against any sort of remotely good player will have to deal damage. This damage wont necessarily be dealt from your initial lings, but from his wrong reaction to it. Work on your macro <.< I checked the replay he posted on this page, a ZvZ. He is in fact gold. I can't help but agree with NoSoldier here Ephemera, because "refinements" of these builds are finicky in that they only work in certain, very special situations. They just won't work against a decently skilled player. | ||
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NeThZOR
South Africa7387 Posts
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rd
United States2586 Posts
On October 07 2013 00:39 weikor wrote: The guy you played tried to go for a nexus first, this is an opening that dies to any early pool. The normal opening is forge expand, with a scout on the forge or pylon. after he sees this, he uses the 400 minerals he has saved for the nexus, for a GW / Cannon / Pylon. This will give him a full wall off. Forge first is not the normal opening. It's nexus first. And Nexus first isn't going to die to an early pool unless you choose not to scout and throw down the Nexus blindly. Secondly, your wall-off isn't going to be up in time unless you're specifically on a map that allows a 3 building wall-off, which none of the maps in the pool allow this. Even if you were on one of those maps, they'll kill the final building in your wall-off before the cannon finishes. I don't remember which specific pools can do it though. On October 07 2013 04:19 Ephemera wrote: Weikor did you even watch the replay? The guy scouted on 9 and put down a 15 forge, there's a 10 second difference between if he went foge first or what he ended up doing. The cannon would've got 2 seconds of shooting which would not stop my attack in the slightest. Now lets assume he puts down 2 cannons in the mineral lines. I would've just gone for the pylon and I still would've had enough to kill all the probes/unpowered cannons. Hold on for a moment. An FFE walling off before an early pool, and an early pool killing a nexus first (attempt) are two different arguments. Firstly, an FFE will not wall-off against an early pool (6-8) in time. In contrast to what I said to Weikor however, a nexus first will EASILY wall-off in time versus your 10 pool, with nearly 30 seconds to spare for the cannon to get a head start building if he 9 scouts (and will see the pool way before he has to drop the Nexus). By the time you get there he'll even have enough minerals to drop an extra gateway or two if you somehow manage to kill a building/pylon in the wall. The Protoss you fought floated more than 400 minerals, building the pylon in his mineral line nearly one minute slower than he could have, which meant the cannon that followed was a minute slower. It should have been FINISHED before you even arrived, and no amount of lings or drones are breaking that with proper micro. NEVERMIND the fact he could have built three if he wanted. If the odds of you destroying a single finished cannon are unlikely, the idea you'd unpower two cannons is insanity. You'd lose everything before you brought it below half. Your replay only proves you fought a Protoss who executes at a sub-gold level, and that you really have no idea what you're talking about. | ||
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random_user07
Canada10 Posts
Extractor trick 11 overlord 11 spawning pool 14 overlord 14 queen + 2 pairs of zerglings 20 hatchery (transfer 7 when done) It's actually quite economic since you get the fast queen to make drones with (you have 250 minerals when pool is done). It is obviously safer than hatchery first openings (queen helps a lot vs say reaper openings). The 2 pairs of early lings can punish a lot of builds such as CC first, nexus first, force early units form opponent, make then stay defensive, not to mention the early lings give scouting info. I prefer to do a 3 queen, late gas followup (late speed) so that at 52/52 supply you have exactly 44 drones. A two base roach-speedling timing (like 12 roach 12 pairs of zerglings) while taking a 3rd is a really nice followup. | ||
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weikor
Austria580 Posts
Forge first is not the normal opening. It's nexus first. And Nexus first isn't going to die to an early pool unless you choose not to scout and throw down the Nexus blindly. Secondly, your wall-off isn't going to be up in time unless you're specifically on a map that allows a 3 building wall-off, which none of the maps in the pool allow this. Even if you were on one of those maps, they'll kill the final building in your wall-off before the cannon finishes. I don't remember which specific pools can do it though Believe me or not Nexus first, will lose to pool at 9 or below. Forge first is the "safe" opening. You cannot afford a wall and a nexus, even a cancelled nexus will have too few minerals, and a too late forge to hold the front. I just tested it in a game, the normal 13 forge - scout has a complete wall on ANY ladder map at 3:02, an 8 pool ( the earliest pool i claim to hold with a forge first) arrives at your base at 3:12 - and your cannon (which is not part of the wall) finishes behind the wall 5-10 seconds later. Now - i agree that, since I havent seen pool first in 50 games, I prefer nexus first. (well.. everyone does hatch first now, and noone really holds a cannonrush properly so i take the easy wins here) | ||
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EndOfLineTv
United States741 Posts
This thread has influenced me to do 9-10p vs terran and toss all week. I have won 90% of these games while doing close to zero damage. maybe its my macro. but I was only 20 sec behind or so with timings. Its the map control that really helps the zerg. the toss and terran must place safe fearing an all in I think.; I am 1400 masters, facing top 8's high masters, and 1-2 gms a day. | ||
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Qwyn
United States2779 Posts
On October 07 2013 23:43 BuiBui wrote: Hello again. This thread has influenced me to do 9-10p vs terran and toss all week. I have won 90% of these games while doing close to zero damage. maybe its my macro. but I was only 20 sec behind or so with timings. Its the map control that really helps the zerg. the toss and terran must place safe fearing an all in I think.; I am 1400 masters, facing top 8's high masters, and 1-2 gms a day. Hmmm. How many corners do you cut? Seems like they should shut you down as soon as hellions come out/MC pops. | ||
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Ephemera
United Kingdom66 Posts
My account on EU is now in platinum and the MMR means I'm constantly facing diamonds and masters. (With a win rate of 70% in all MU except Terran which is at 50%) I've beaten masters with macro based games so this thread wasn't created because I'm looking for easy ways to get into masters. I made this thread because the concept of early pools intrigues me and they're what got me into playing zerg in the first place. BuiBui, first off happy birthday secondly it's great to hear someone else doing early pools and doing so at a high level with a good win rate. I would be interested to hear how you transition/hold onto that map control if they went for a reaper expand. | ||
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EndOfLineTv
United States741 Posts
if they go for rax ---> cc or cc ---> rax. (assuming zer0 damage done because they played safe with cc on high ground for full wall off) Your 6 lings prevent the terran from putting down their bunker, and cc. They need to make 5-6 rines, or wait for helions to pop out before they can take their natural. This means that they must mule in their main base. making them run out at their main base faster (which will affect the game around the 15-20 min mark) If you play "standard" with your gas, third, ov, and RW timings, from the 9-10p. your roaches pop right when their helions get to your base, preventing you from being punished. From here it is a normal game. Honestly it seems that you both are even'ish, the only benefit is you are safe from any proxy two rax, and are called a hacker lol. @Ephemera. 10p vs reaper into hellion is more tricky. You will be a bit behind because of how fast helions pop. as far as I can tell you have two real options. The reapers prevent you from getting map control. But the fast queen prevents any damage done to you. However their helions pop out faster, and most terrans will do a 2 reaper 6 hellion timing which is tough to hold. In fact, you must use your third queen to block your choke, giving you just enough time for roaches. This is the problem. Because of the earlier timing. You must skip your upgrades to get roaches out in time to save your third. This is crappy because the terran upgrades will be faster then yours. gross. so I would suggest an all in such as roach, mass ling, mass bane all in (8-9 min timing) or a 1/1 all in of some kind. OR I think this is a better answer, you can skip your third base for very fast upgrades, a wall with one spine, and do a timing while saturating your third. kinda like zvz. I like a 1/1 speed roach burrow timing, while saturating my third. into 2/2 roach hydra max. But any 2 base timing into third base is fine. 1/1 ling bling into muta for example. Now clearly. standard hatch first play is much better vs reaper opening. and 10p is very good vs cc first. and even vs rax first. Just a roll the dice decision EDIT. build order: 10p 12ext trick 12/10 ov 17 hatch 16queen 18ov queen 23ov queen at nat. 31ov 40-44 ov, third base (vs cc/rax or rax/cc) 40-44 double gas (around 6min) 40-44 roach warren make 4 roaches when it pops 60 evo wall. next gas double grades lings speed lair bane nest. (note, if they only have 2 cc, and will do a 10 min timing, you should make units before fully suturing your third) when all 3 bases are saturated (all gas) and then macro hatch around 10 min 4th base, (make units around 9 :30 for a 3 cc build) EDIT EDIT: one more thing to add. Mechanics and macro get you into masters, any build you use to get there. I would suggest less all ins and more macro play. | ||
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weikor
Austria580 Posts
Honestly it seems that you both are even'ish I would like to list how a game goes vs an equally skilled oponent you would otherwise have won against. The game starts, you 9 pool, the terran has walled off his highground. You drone behind this, but the terran lost only his scouting scv. The terran then proceeds to, forced by the lings, to stay on the highground, behind this he has double mule and SCV production, allowing him to saturate his main quicker than usual and take his gasses. The big problem with failed early pools, isnt so much the drone saturation, its the fact that your tech will be extremely delayed, since you need every drone to mine as many minerals to mine for more drones / units. An extractor cutting 25% of your mineral income is just horrible when you have 1.5 base saturation, so now you end up beeing on the back foot. The terran scouts your natural and sees you are trying to play economically therefore triggering the greedy terran play. Macroing from slightly behind, it closes many timing windows, allowing the terran to play just a little greedier than he could otherwise. He gets his ebays up earlier than he wanted to, or more rax, or he moves out or even another expansion. the 2 base zerg early pool zerg is no real threat against his widowmine marine combo. | ||
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NoSoldier
Germany84 Posts
Nethzor and NoSoldier, I'm not a gold level player. That was my EU account which I am levelling because I get better ping than my old server which was NA. My account on EU is now in platinum and the MMR means I'm constantly facing diamonds and masters. (With a win rate of 70% in all MU except Terran which is at 50%) Sorry, where was the difference again? When i was in bronce i was facing masters at a constant rate too!... I am though interested in seeing some of BuiBui's replays and have a look at how things went. It is though not imaginable for me, how still people cant react properly and simply be ahead economywise and give it all away. What comes to mind is burrow, mutas, multipronged aggression and all in or just "overplay" plays out of you to follow things up to get back in the game. Seemeths just a little ... too retarded for me to believe that winrate. On the other hand players (including myself) are really retarded.. might as well be true. | ||
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SacredCoconut
Finland121 Posts
Cant say i felt i was behind at all, and the 1st game i lost because of my bad muta control and was ahead before that. | ||
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Ephemera
United Kingdom66 Posts
 BuiBui, my goal isn't to get to masters as fast as possible it's to do it whilst having fun and gaining better early game knowledge and decision making. STLife 10 Pool macro vs Terran seems to be the only way to beat a Terran with an early pool (Other than 6 pool vs CC first) the follow up STLife does after it was a 1/1 SBling SLing timing with around 30 banelings. My adaptation of this would be to add in overlord speed and make more overseers, serve up a dimaga special and tank all the widowmines which did the crucial damage to stop this attack which is not an all in but a strong timing. | ||
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NoSoldier
Germany84 Posts
You wont learn very much about "early decisionmaking" with 6 pooling either because of the above. Your opponents learn more from your play than you from their reactions. If you want to improve your decisionmaking you should switch to macrooriented plays and scout for gasses. If you are trying to get the "kill switch" enabled, so you know when to kill an opponent you wanna just try to be aggressive as you can or feel like you can do it. Even attacking when you dont feel like you should succeed with that attack you will be suprised at how weak strong looking builds are at times. Early game decisionmaking comes with your awareness to what you can scout, but it wont win the games for you. You need lategame decisionmaking in order to win games, which also is something you wont learn with early aggression wins at all. Btw that video has no early pool in it whatsoever. p.s.: I dont know why i even bother... | ||
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Ephemera
United Kingdom66 Posts
The video was to highlight the possible transition out of this build rather than showing off an early pool. Before you jump to have a go at me for not being dreary and standard playing actually read my post. | ||
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NoSoldier
Germany84 Posts
STLife 10 Pool macro vs Terran seems to be the only way to beat a Terran with an early pool (Other than 6 pool vs CC first) the follow up STLife does after it was a 1/1 SBling SLing timing with around 30 banelings. Into video. Enough said.How will your early game decisionmaking develop from 10 pooling? I have no idea to be honest. Its not like i never all in or never put down an early pool. Its just not going to help you improve as much as regular macrogames will help you out. I tried to help, though my overall tone was aggressive, which is maybe unnecessary. I admit that. This is just the wrong way going about learning how to play this game properly and im sure that 99% of good players will agree here. I made my point, nothing to add. Fare well in Starcraft 2. | ||
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Ephemera
United Kingdom66 Posts
Hyvaa the best sniper for Soul and has a very good record and he consistently uses cheese yet almost beat Innovation in a macro game. Macro may be the best way to learn for some, others early pools/cheese are a better way. It's person to person at the end of the day, I find learning from early pools/cheese better than learning through macro. My early decisionmaking would develop for 10 pool macro because the variety of choices your opponent can make after and the various all ins they come out with after. I didn't phrase that talk about the video very well, sorry. In other games in the tournament he used that build from a 10 pool but I couldn't find the VODS. Nevermind. | ||
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velvex
Germany226 Posts
Keep going, Ephemera. Although I don't think there are early variations that have really gone by people, it's still interesting to reconsider some of them. Especially in ZvZ there are quite a number of them that can work if the opponent hasn't played against it in a while and doesn't react correctly. I find it useful to know them if you want to concentrate on ZvP and ZvT ladder practice ... | ||
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