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My previous thread was a discussion regarding whether the 11 Overpool build was viable as a standard opening in all match-ups. After much testing and practice I have concluded that it is certainly viable. Whether or not it is the best option in each circumstance is up to you to decide.
Here is a link the the discussed build with data and replays for those who haven't seen it:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173430
The purpose of this thread is to provide a guide for the different variations I have begun using in different scenarios. In my mind, the true power of this build is in it's flexibility and adaptability. However, without knowing how to adapt and why, the value of this build is lost.
This thread is geared toward players who aren't high-diamond, who might have trouble knowing how to respond and adapt to their opponents play in every circumstance. I want to give an account of my thought-process going into each game with this build.
Note: The current replays are a little out-dated and do not perfectly reflect the strategy described, but they are close enough to be useful. As I encounter these builds more often on the ladder I will update the OP with reps.
I want this thread to be a continual work in progress. If you have any suggestions or need anything added, please let me know. If you have lost with this build recently or have had trouble with a particular strategy and want help, please post a detailed explanation and a replay of the game so we can help solve the problem and further adapt the build.
Please don't make claims without having some evidence to back it up. Also, hearsay and arguments from authority are not evidence.
ZvZ
10 Extractor trick
11 Overlord
11 Pool
14 Gas
15 Queen
17 Zergling
18 Overlord
STOP! What do you scout?
1) Opponent went 6 or 7 pool and is building lings.
This is an auto-win if played correctly. Begin saving larvae for lings. Once lings pop use them + drones + queen to clean up the attack.
2) Opponent went hatch then pool.
This is also pretty much an auto-win. Drop a hatch here at 18 and get your third overlord. Mine gas until you reach 100, then get speed and remove drones from gas. You will need all of your drones on minerals in order to support constant ling production.
Rally both hatches to enemy and pump 100% lings with constant injections. I haven't seen one person defend against this on the ladder. I am thinking it may theoretically be possible to defend on the map Jungle Basin if the Zerg can rush to roaches and quickly block the ramp, but I can't be sure because I haven't seen it happen.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-170829.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-170544.jpg)
3) Your opponent went pool first and is making a hatch.
Drop a hatch at 18 here. Opponent's build will typically transition into either heavy speedling pressure, or a more macro-based game with roaches to defend. If the opponent went gas before pool, it is likely he is getting fast metabolic boost and is going for ling play. Check for the pool movement to be sure speed is upgrading. Then try and match him in ling production. If he is being very aggressive, drop a baneling nest.
If you don't see speed upgrading, or you see a roach warren, get a roach warren yourself. Again, try to match your opponents production so that you can keep even with macro and also not die  . These games are always about finding the balance between unit and drone production. If there is a significant discrepancy in units between players, an attack can end the game. So keep scouting.
4) Your opponent went pool first and has no expansion in sight.
This is the trickiest scenario to engage. You must keep scouting. See if he is going speedlings or roach push, or if he plans on expanding. The trouble is the opponent will often get two lings and kill your scouting drone before revealing his plan. You should have your own pair of lings to continue scouting. Be persistent about it; you cannot play this in the dark.
Whether or not you decide to get your expo up is up to you. I will say there is a degree of risk in it, but the rewards can be significant if your opponent either doesn't attack or the attack fails. I usually add my second overlord and pump drones while waiting for more info. It is key to see if he is going roaches or not. You don't want to waste your gas on speed and have 7 roaches coming at you.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-170612.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-171596.jpg)
ZvT
10 Extractor trick
11 Overlord
11 Pool
16 Queen
18 Overlord
STOP! What do you scout?
In this match-up, you should have a single-minded goal early on of determining whether the build is 2rax or not. That is the priority over anything else. Get a drone into his base quickly before he can wall-off. Key things to look for:
No gas. Most Terran builds will get gas when the barracks is around halfway done, or slightly later. (Note: This isn't foolproof, as some high-level Terran's may get gas to throw you off your guard, and then transition into a sudden attack. However, this will of course diminish the strength and speed of the push.)
A second barracks. (DUH!)
An oddly placed barracks, for example at the bottom of the ramp. Also, be wary of a potential hidden maka-rax.
1) Your opponent is not going 2rax.
Drop your hatch at 18. Add an extractor and work toward ling speed. Get two zerglings to scout, then keep producing drones. From here the strategy is up to you, and you can play the standard ZvT match-up.
2) Your opponent is going 2rax.
Start producing lings. Once you have around 6 lings, drop your expansion. Continue scouting. If you see your opponent massing marines and pulling scv's, use all your larvae inject on lings. Micro is key to this engagement.
If you think you have enough lings to win outright, then attack. Otherwise, wait for injection-lings to pop before engaging. If you see your opponent building a bunker outside your nat, pull drones and lings and attack immediately. If you see he is going all in by pulling tons of scv's then pull your own drones as well and attack as one group of drone/zergling. Try to micro your zerglings to get behind the marines. They are the real damage dealers, and this will prevent them from stutter-stepping backwards.
"But won't I be behind in economy?" Having his workers running around the map instead of mining is a significant hit to your opponent. If you can kill his marines and scv's with just lings and lose no drones of your own, your opponent will be in terrible shape. You should have no trouble cleaning up his attack with the number of lings you have.
"But what if he doesn't attack?" Drop a spine as soon as creep is available. Then add gas and make drones. Don't worry, you won't be that far behind because you used 3 larvae on lings instead of 1. Two drones shouldn't cost you the game. You will easily surpass Terran in workers with queen injections.
Use the lings as map control/scouting and try to deny his expansion. If your opponent is expanding too quickly and has only a few marines, just go ****ing kill him. Get banelings if you need to... but it shouldn't be too hard to punish a FE terran with just marines if you have the production capacity of two hatches and two queens with units already out.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-170620.jpg)
ZvP
10 Extractor trick
11 Overlord
11 Pool
16 Queen
18 Patrol drone at bottom of ramp
STOP! What do you scout?
1) Two gateways.
Get lings and a spine to defend. If necessary, add gas and a roach warren. Don't expand until you feel safe enough to do so.
2) A gateway and a cyber core.
Drop your hatch here. Keep scouting. For gateway pressure, get lings/roaches/spines at natural. Keep your units by your natural to prevent FF on ramp. For stargate play, add a third queen and a couple spines at expo. Use your first 100 gas for lair instead of speed and tech to hydras.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-170545.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-170645.jpg)
3) A forge
You can safely expand here if you play correctly. Keep patrolling drone to prevent your ramp from getting blocked, as this will cost you the game in most cases. Keep an overlord over your expansion and scout thoroughly for any hidden pylons. If your opponent is using the forge to FE, you have several options: All-in bust the front, nydus in the main, or drone hard and tech to mutas.
4) Nothing... my opponents base is empty.
OMG LOOK HE HAS ZEALOTS IN YOUR MINERAL LINE!
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Hatch then pool being auto-win for the 11 Overpool build ??? Following your explanation, by the time you have your ling speed they will have the (slight) economic advantage and will AT LEAST be able to match you in lings (heck, if you waited for ling speed they can have banelings).
The real advantage you have are those 6-8 lings that come really early. I usually all-in when using 11 overpool and see the early hatch on small maps.
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ZvZ: Your plan for the two most likely scenarios is .... strange to say the least:
vs Hatch first: its probably more viable to immidiately save larvae and build lings once the pool is done (depends on distance) and do damage to his eco before his lings spawn. Your suggestion is just a speedling allin which can work if the opponent is too greedy and/or doesnt scout correctly, but can be rather easily fended off with queens blocking the ramp at first, 1-2 spine crawlers and then added roaches.
vs Pool no expansion: You are not wasting gas on speed when the opponent is going for some kind of strange early roach rush, as speedling counter roaches in small numbers. Furthermore, there is no mention of the popular ling baneling build, which kinda makes this section useless.
ZvT:
1) Your opponent is not going 2rax.
Erm, so, how do you counter fast hellions? you get your gas super late, so ling speed wont be there in time, are you getting roaches then? Are the Roaches even there in time with your BO?
On the 2 rax section: i think you are overly optismistic here, especially on how easily you can kill an early expansion after 2 rax pressure, as any good terran will put down a sufficient number of bunkers and/or make a wall with his raxes.
Also, i think you underestimate your economic hit
ZvP:
vs 1 gate + core: fast teching to lair without speed just outright dies to to 1 gas 4 gate, and probably dies to pretty much any other 4 gate aswell, as you wont have sufficient hydra numbers out in time. And no, i dont believe your eco is that much better because of your great build that it works.
Unfortunately, the followups you have presented are not very solid.
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Very well presented OP. This is definitely a good start to a discussion.
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Great post. I've been using 11 overpool recently with a lot of success.
In ZvP, what's the purpose of patrolling ramp with a drone? Does P block the ramp with zealots/stalkers and hammer away at the expo?
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On December 14 2010 06:42 raded wrote:
Great post. I've been using 11 overpool recently with a lot of success.
In ZvP, what's the purpose of patrolling ramp with a drone? Does P block the ramp with zealots/stalkers and hammer away at the expo?
He wants to do it in case of a pylon block + cannons behind.
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Hey DarKFoRcE, what is the most common opening you use, as far as pool and hatch timings?
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^ Will be patched soon, keep in mind.
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IMO, you should really try to put "scout" in the build order -- when you do it affects both the timings of the build, and whether you can see things before a decision point.
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2500 Diamond user here
11overpool pretty much fails against the following builds:
1) 2rax opening from terran
11overpool is good for a fast larva injection for a great economy. against 2rax you will often have to use these larva agaisnt early agression. You won't have any creep and of course no spine crawler. Sure you might hold but you are way behind then
2) fast stalker BO from protoss
Pretty much the same. 2-3 fast harass stalkers are common these days and without creep or a spine crawler you will have to produce a lot of lings which negates the strength of the 11overpool BO
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After playing with this build a bit in each matchup, I only find it effective in ZvP. This is mainly because 14 hatch in that matchup is suicide, and those damn pylons blocking my expansion piss me off.
In ZvT I always 14 hatch (except on Steppes, but I downvote that map) and it's pretty safe from everything as long as you can get down that spine crawler as soon as the hatch finishes.
In ZvZ I 14 gas 14 pool sling/baneling. I feel like this is the best build for this matchup excluding a few positions on some maps where hatch first would be viable. Also I believe 14 gas 14 pool would beat the 11 pool build, especially if they spend 300 minerals on that hatchery or even just get more than 15 drones.
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On December 14 2010 08:02 jdseemoreglass wrote:
sigh...
Your previous thread was filled with noobs to the brink both completely flaming the BO and praising it. Now you've got fucking darkforce in here giving you a lengthy reply on stuff you should work on. If I was in your position I would be rejoiced like no other to have a pro's input on my thoughts.
darkforce is the highest caliber player that reads the strategy forums and you reply with a 'sigh'. Give me a fucking break and him some respect.
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mid-diamond player here.
I tried this BO on ladder. Ended up with a 6 loose-streak.
Now i understand why:
""the true power of this build is in it's flexibility and adaptability. However, without knowing how to adapt and why, the value of this build is lost.""
I guess that i'm so used to the standart that I have lost my "feeling of the game rythm".
So I guess that I should:
a) memorize what and when i must build depending on the different things that I scout.
or
b) Keep playing standart.
If this BO is really so good then in the long-run I should benefit of learning and practicing this BO.
But from the other side - perhaps I should keep playing standart just to get the "feeling of the game rythm" and only THEN start playing with this BO.
ohh lol. i don't even know/remeber what i just wrote. nor i do care :D
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On December 14 2010 08:10 ChickenLips wrote:Your previous thread was filled with noobs to the brink both completely flaming the BO and praising it. Now you've got fucking darkforce in here giving you a lengthy reply on stuff you should work on. If I was in your position I would be rejoiced like no other to have a pro's input on my thoughts. darkforce is the highest caliber player that reads the strategy forums and you reply with a 'sigh'. Give me a fucking break and him some respect.
Is he a pro? I'm sorry, I never heard of him. From my point of view, his post sounded no different than any of the others. For example, arguing against my suggestion to get a lair and skip speed against 4gate builds when I actually suggested getting lings/roaches/spines. But I don't know, maybe it is a language barrier or something...
I know TL has a major problem these days with what zatic called the "bandwagon effect," where a pro says something and everyone in the thread agrees and attacks anyone who disagrees until the entire forum has a single mindset. You can see this clearly with the ret/IdrA debate which defies explanation.
I remember even putting in the OP that I wanted people to provide some type of evidence and I get the inevitable "this build fails to 2rax" post. I'm really losing faith in this community day by day.
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On December 14 2010 08:36 jdseemoreglass wrote:
Is he a pro? I'm sorry, I never heard of him. From my point of view, his post sounded no different than any of the others. For example, arguing against my suggestion to get a lair and skip speed against 4gate builds when I actually suggested getting lings/roaches/spines. But I don't know, maybe it is a language barrier or something...
I know TL has a major problem these days with what zatic called the "bandwagon effect," where a pro says something and everyone in the thread agrees and attacks anyone who disagrees until the entire forum has a single mindset. You can see this clearly with the ret/IdrA debate which defies explanation.
I remember even putting in the OP that I wanted people to provide some type of evidence and I get the inevitable "this build fails to 2rax" post. I'm really losing faith in this community day by day.
I think there is a real difference between people following a general statement thrown out by a high-caliber player (e.g. hatch first required to stop X), and a high-caliber player providing a specific and thorough criticism of your post directly.
As such, despite the fact that I think you have put in a lot of great effort working and defending your build (i was there from page 1 man!!), I don't understand the above response.
Of course not knowing who he is is totally forgivable, but not considering his experience without specific evidence seems foolish.
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On December 14 2010 08:02 jdseemoreglass wrote:
sigh...
It's frustrating to get hearsay when you ask for evidence, but realize that the pros aren't doing your build as their standard so they're not going to have a ton of replays just sitting around of what failed/worked for it.
I'm curious as to how your build holds off 10 gate / fast zealot pressure. This is something that a fast pool should be strong against.
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Im not sure if i missread something or whether you editted your post afterwards, but how in gods name can you scout whether your opponent is going for what you call "gateway pressure" or a stargate? Of course, when you know what your opponent will do within the next minutes it is easy to counter, but any decent protoss will deny this information.
Furthermore, if your opponent scouts you getting a late gas, he will pressure with his first stalker, whats your plan to defend against this?
The thing is, you cant just have such different plans depending on what your opponent will do in the future, as it is not possible to know what will come.
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On December 14 2010 08:36 jdseemoreglass wrote:
Is he a pro? I'm sorry, I never heard of him. .
aTnDarkForce -- he is a very very talented European Zerg player. I would take his estimation of your build under serious consideration.
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On December 14 2010 06:13 DarKFoRcE wrote:
vs Hatch first: its probably more viable to immidiately save larvae and build lings once the pool is done (depends on distance) and do damage to his eco before his lings spawn. Your suggestion is just a speedling allin which can work if the opponent is too greedy and/or doesnt scout correctly, but can be rather easily fended off with queens blocking the ramp at first, 1-2 spine crawlers and then added roaches.
In my experience the first few lings produced will reach the opponent just in time for his own lings to finish. The real advantage in my opinion is the earlier queen inject and faster zergling speed.
Also, I don't quite see what is stopping you from getting lings once the pool is done. In the replays I posted I pumped lings pretty consistently and I don't think my opponents were particularly greedy. Also, I don't quite see how queens on the ramp will defend against speedling all-in. Either the hatch will die putting the opponent severely behind, or the lings will be able to attack and kill the queens without taking much loss.
It is quite possible my opponents had no idea what they were doing and defended terribly. Without actual evidence I can't really reach a conclusion on the viability of defending this attack.
there is no mention of the popular ling baneling build, which kinda makes this section useless.
When I mentioned getting a baneling nest after scouting the opponents aggressive ling play, I was referring to baneling-type plays.
1) Your opponent is not going 2rax.
Erm, so, how do you counter fast hellions? you get your gas super late, so ling speed wont be there in time, are you getting roaches then? Are the Roaches even there in time with your BO?
Is the gas super late? I wasn't aware of that. It seems like the timing would be pretty close to any other standard build, for example IdrA's MLG BO vTerran. 14 Hatch 14 Pool 16 Gas vs. 11Pool 16/18 Hatch 17 Gas doesn't seem like there would be that much of a delay between the two.
Without actual evidence I can't really reach a conclusion on how late gas is.
On the 2 rax section: i think you are overly optismistic here, especially on how easily you can kill an early expansion after 2 rax pressure, as any good terran will put down a sufficient number of bunkers and/or make a wall with his raxes.
I am having trouble visualizing how the terran can afford a command center, several barracks, marines, and bunkers before the zerg can produce lings and banelings.
Without actual evidence I can't really reach a conclusion regarding how quickly terran can bunker in an expansion.
vs 1 gate + core: fast teching to lair without speed just outright dies to to 1 gas 4 gate, and probably dies to pretty much any other 4 gate aswell, as you wont have sufficient hydra numbers out in time. And no, i dont believe your eco is that much better because of your great build that it works.
This is just a misunderstanding. Against a gateway build I recommended ling/roach/spines, and against a stargate build I recommended the faster lair and hydras.
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EPT
