Yeah, early pool isn’t much of an investment anymore. And it seems to put protoss on the defensive so much so that their economy is worse off than yours for you doing it.
Remember when a 6 pool didnt’ do any dmg? Game was over for zerg. IF a 12 pool doesn’t do any damage? Well it forced a chrono on a zealot, no nexus because they’re frantically defending. And then zerg just takes their hatchery (maybe even before the lings get to P’s base) and drones up. No problem.
As you can see, this is terrible RTS design. There should never be such a thing as a free lunch. A strat that has a chance to kill the opponent w/no risk or little drawback is a free lunch.
Yes, early pool. It doesn’t hurt the zerg economy very much if you do the right build. In fact, you can still end up ahead.
Here’s what I do.
12 pool
Drone to 14
At 14 take your nat
Stay at 13 Drones
When pool finishes, build 2 Extractors (11 supply)
Build 6 lings (3 larva)
Cancel extractors (16/14 supply now)
Build Hatchery (15/14 supply)
Build another Hatchery (14/14 supply)
Build an overlord
And then do whatever you like (I use my larva on drones and get queens, then gas and maaaaybe a spore per active mineral line, depending on the timing), as long as it makes sense. Just don’t let the lings die, they’re there to distract the Protoss and keep ground forces at home.
At the very start you end up aprox 4 drones behind but then leap frog forward in workers once your 3rd finishes.
Look how ridiculous this is. I play against zerg that routinely 12 pool. There’s no draw back. Why not see if you can win right away, and if you don’t, oh well nothing’s lost?
Exactly. In a worst case scenario, they opened 2 gate cyber before nexus and have a full wall you can only poke. They’re 2 bases behind still and have ceded map control. Just watch out for proxy Oracles…but even then…if you macro well, you can lose 10 drones and still be even with Protoss…meanwhile they just blew how much gas to get back onto even macro footing for a few seconds?
speedlings are always an investment. not in minerals, but in larva. if you see 16 lings sneaking around your base, thats 8 less drones the zerg could have. so unless its the lategame, where both sides have their 70-80 worker, its always an investment to have a group of speedlings for runbys.
the other things you mentioned are allins (like you said), so if you scout them and react properly, you win, otherwise you deserve the loss. this is btw the same for every race again. dont scout an immortal 2base allin and youre as dead as you can be as a zerg. thats the meaing of allins. scout before they happen - win. dont scout before they happen - loss.
dts are out before the 5 minute mark, so yes, they are early game. doesnt matter how deep into the techpath they are. its like you were saying “bc openings arent early game” which would also be not true. so yes, a dt drop/rush is early game. but anyway, a zerg/terran can autolose against dts. thats a fact.
if 12 pool wouldnt be an investment and wouldnt set you behind the opponent economicly, we would see 12 pool every game. instead, we see 12 pool really rarely. so ofc, its a huge investment. its do or die and the times the zergs still ingame after that opening, he did dmg to his oppoent. otherwise it IS autoloss. again, if it wouldnt be the case, we would see it in almost every game.
You don’t see 12 pool a lot because most Zerg players suck at sc2 (hyperbole, in reality it’s less that they suck and more that they are stupidly not inventive).
They don’t use optimal builds and opt for defense instead…and while this is good for ZvZ and sometime ZvT…you can get away with so much crap in ZvP if you extractor trick out 6 lings asap and macro behind it.
One game I had today ended at 11 minutes , I had 13 bases to the Protoss 3, maxed out on LMB and the moment the Protoss stepped on creep, I surrounded from every angle then a move’d their bases while rallying a good 50 lings across the map every 30ish seconds.
Also, I’m sure others do something similar to what I do but a lot of pros dislike using strategies this aggressive. I’ve brought the subject with a few of them before and usually, I get the same response “Ohhh…ewww that’s dirty”. And by pros, I mean GM casters. I don;t actually know any pros lol.
Zerg should not be able to use their input devices until the 10 minute mark and their opponent should start with 5 bases, 10k of both resources, and all their tech. Learning to play is too hard.
well, im not really a fan of taking own games, or any not high gm games, as a reference for any balance opinion, since i totally know, that my opponent and obv myself are doing so many crucial mistakes, that balance is still a factor yes, but only in a tiny margin. things like mechanics, decission making etc are so much more important on non-pro level. thats the reason why i always could go nuts, if someone in this forum whines about balance, just because they just lost to a certain strategy.
so yes, its totally possible in laddergames, to COMPLETELY outplay the oppoent by doing whatever you want. but that doesnt say anything about the state of the game/balance.
and btw, i dont think, that pros dont use 12 pool because they suck or because they dont know the right builds… its like i said, its a risk. it CAN end the game, it CAN set your opponent behind, but it also can kill you. most pros are confident enough, that they know, that they have a better chance to win in a macro game.
I aint calling this imba. I’m just pointing out that 12 pool, when done right vs Protoss doesn’t really harm your macro for more than maybe a minute where the Protoss typically is panicking anyhow, throwing their macro out the window.
Outside of a few things, I agree, balance outside of the pro scene is L2P. There are exceptions but they’re things like early LotV Liberators or early LotV Adepts. Or WoL/Current Infestors, etc.
They’re glaring examples of imbalance and while the community at the time didn;t recognize those as balance issues, the problems eventually surfaced on the pro scene and were addressed. Especially after David Kim was allocated elsewhere.
In a lot of cases, I agree, pros would rather macro and win that way. In this specific case though, I think it’s the stigma attached to the 12 pool. People think it puts your behind and it kind of sort of does…but not in ZvP if you do the specific opener I mentioned. It’s the exception to the rule.
The only GM Zerg I’ve talked about it with was Vibe and he sounded like he wanted to say "Ewwww, that’s so cheesy. No way I’m doing that:. lol. I imagine that’s a common sentiment for GMs.