Hello, citizens of Teamliquid.

Every time players below diamond league ask for strategy advice, inevitably the reply is given: macro better. However, many of these players really don't have any idea how to go about improving their macro, and many don't even know if their macro is suffering in the first place.

Here, I issue this challenge:
Your goal is to max out building nothing but workers on an empty map. Use Metalopolis as the standard map, and you are not allowed to mine the gold. You may use chrono boost and queens, however, I believe making orbitals would slow you down.. not sure about this, but let's just say no orbitals so I don't have to bother testing lol. Only Faster game speed is allowed, obviously. The time is measured the second you hit 200 supply - pause / end the game and take note of the in game clock. For Zerg, you may only build one queen at each hatchery, and pre-building queens with other hatcheries is not allowed. Each hatchery may build its own queen and only one.

I will keep time records for each league, beginning with my own standard of GM league. I will list all times given, but if you break the record for your link, you are required to provide a replay and a link to your sc2ranks profile for validation.

There's no prize, just some friendly competition and attempts to master our macro.

The next challenge will be to max out on pure marines/zealots/lings etc as fast as possible (including workers obviously). I'll get that started and edit into OP in a bit.

Zerg Records
+ Show Spoiler [Grandmaster/Master] +

Drunken.Jedi / 10:48
pwncakery / 10:54
dani` / 10:56
Ryps / 10:57
Comoguy / 10:58
Tendou / 10:59
REDBLUEGREEN / 11:03
ApBuLLet / 11:08
Pokebunny / 11:11
SeeDLiNg / 11:26

+ Show Spoiler [Diamond] +

tjosan / 10:59
Bwiggly / 11:09

+ Show Spoiler [Platinum] +

hydrus / 11:04
jura4 / 11:10
machination / 11:11
nobuild / 11:19
enemy2010 / 11:33
RPR_Tempest / 11:56
svefnleysi / 12:10

+ Show Spoiler [Gold] +

lazyitachi / 11:09
GizmoPT / 11:28
Bart331 / 11:50

+ Show Spoiler [Silver] +

Zaixis / 11:59

+ Show Spoiler [Bronze] +

gwixter / 11:22
Nildawenn / 11:50

Terran Records
+ Show Spoiler [Grandmaster/Master] +

Sero / 11:35
Pokebunny / 11:41
alyselol / 11:42
discobaas / 11:58
OpTiKDream / 12:06
Nightmarjoo / 12:07
cookiesinatree / 12:09

+ Show Spoiler [Diamond] +

hnim / 12:22
StrikeNova / 12:37

+ Show Spoiler [Platinum] +

Gfire / 11:50
hydrus / 11:58
Like / 12:00
BruteOLeary / 12:14
Blasterion / 12:42

+ Show Spoiler [Gold] +

lazyitachi / 11:55

+ Show Spoiler [Silver] +

dannyt3 / 12:14

+ Show Spoiler [Bronze] +

AwfulPlayer / 12:24
InfernoStarcraft / 12:37
SilentByte / 14:31

Protoss Records
+ Show Spoiler [Grandmaster/Master] +

OminouS / 10:48
dani` / 11:01
Obelisco / 11:02
Mstring / 11:06
SCPlato / 11:08
Pokebunny / 11:10
Half / 11:12
Amornthep / 11:15

+ Show Spoiler [Diamond] +

TheCreature / 11:13

+ Show Spoiler [Platinum] +

Arvd / 10:59
Big G / 11:27
HoMM / 11:30
Gofarman / 11:53

+ Show Spoiler [Gold] +

lazyitachi / 11:14

+ Show Spoiler [Silver] +

1. DensitY / 11:32

+ Show Spoiler [Bronze] +

gl hf!

I'm not sure how difficult this will be to perfect for low league players, but we'll see! Should be fun nonetheless.

Mafs

Canada458 Posts

December 30 2011 05:17 GMT

I got 10:50 with zerg on shakuras. Maybe can do it by 11:15 due to expansions being further away. Maxed on roach drone and queen. Masters.

Emperor_Earth

United States824 Posts

December 30 2011 05:17 GMT

Um... I admire the effort. But I would argue that mechanics are the key for lower level leagues, not necessarily macro.

hnim

United States86 Posts

December 30 2011 05:17 GMT

Edit: Did not read, delete please.

itiswhatitis

United States136 Posts

December 30 2011 05:17 GMT

In what dimension would making orbitals slow you down from maxing?

Kevinshi3

United States148 Posts

December 30 2011 05:18 GMT

pokebunny fighting

Pokebunny

United States10654 Posts

December 30 2011 05:18 GMT

On December 30 2011 14:17 Mafs wrote:
I got 10:50 with zerg. Maxed on roach drone and queen. Masters.

For the purposes of this list at the current moment, workers + queens only. Though I should limit queens.. to 5?

Pokebunny

United States10654 Posts

December 30 2011 05:18 GMT

On December 30 2011 14:17 itiswhatitis wrote:
In what dimension would making orbitals slow you down from maxing?

On pure scvs? I think the build time is more important than the cash for pure scvs.

bqm

94 Posts

December 30 2011 05:18 GMT

max out dont prove that you can macro better.... in a game you have to deal with so many situation that you cant max out that fast, or even max out army your army is still crap, like mass roach lings

edit: now let said put hardest computer and if you can still max out before 13 mins as zerg and 16-17 mins protoss terran and you are good to go.

Venus.exe

United States285 Posts

December 30 2011 05:19 GMT

#10

Oh this surely sounds interesting~! Hope you receive a lot of response for this, I'm curious what we can all get out of this.

Mafs

Canada458 Posts

December 30 2011 05:19 GMT

#11

On December 30 2011 14:18 Pokebunny wrote:

Show nested quote +

For the purposes of this list at the current moment, workers + queens only. Though I should limit queens.. to 5?

I had like 160 drones and 4 queens. Workers only, and 4 queens would be like 11:20. You have like 15 hatcheries and >5000 minerals at the end no matter what.

101toss

3232 Posts

December 30 2011 05:20 GMT

#12

On December 30 2011 14:18 bqm wrote:
max out dont prove that you can macro better.... in a game you have to deal with so many situation that you cant max out that fast, or even max out army your army is still crap, like mass roach lings

This. There's a reason one base play is still strong

Jedclark

United Kingdom903 Posts

December 30 2011 05:21 GMT

#13

On December 30 2011 14:17 itiswhatitis wrote:
In what dimension would making orbitals slow you down from maxing?

You're trying to max on SCVs, so Mules are irrelevant. The build time of the OC is pointless.

hnim

United States86 Posts

December 30 2011 05:22 GMT

#14

How do you make a map without having the game instantly won?

Pokebunny

United States10654 Posts

December 30 2011 05:23 GMT

#15

On December 30 2011 14:22 hnim wrote:
How do you make a map without having the game instantly won?

Just press return to game after creating an empty map.

Pokebunny

United States10654 Posts

December 30 2011 05:26 GMT

#16

Obviously this isn't a perfect scenario test of macro, but at the very least it's a decent exercise for <platinum players to try to match higher league players.

Witten

United States2094 Posts

December 30 2011 05:28 GMT

#17

Holy shit people, read the thread. It's just a worker build challenge, no reason to even mention roaches or zerglings because you won't be making any...

StrikeNova

Canada47 Posts

December 30 2011 05:29 GMT

#18

This looks like a fun challenge, im going to try this first thing tomorrow but idk how maxing on workers improves normal macro. Shouldn't the challenge be trying to get the fastest 200/200 army the quickest possible so it challenges us to find the best 1 or 2 base builds?

Pokebunny

United States10654 Posts

December 30 2011 05:30 GMT

#19

On December 30 2011 14:29 StrikeNova wrote:
This looks like a fun challenge, im going to try this first thing tomorrow but idk how maxing on workers improves normal macro. Shouldn't the challenge be trying to get the fastest 200/200 army the quickest possible so it challenges us to find the best 1 or 2 base builds?

Maybe I'll do that next :o

Gofarman

Canada646 Posts

December 30 2011 05:30 GMT

#20

Protoss Platinum 11:53 (pretty sure I could do it in 11ish cause I hard capped myself after not building nexus' fast enough)

As for a little bit of strategy I think it might be faster to only build 1 pylon and just do nexus' for supply after that.

EDIT-

Managed 11:29 on the third try avoiding any hard supply caps.