I can't imagine a zerg player who regularly hatch-firsts against protoss to find himself in this situation.

An overlord over the natural spots for the scouting probe. Some players assign a drone to follow it, personally I don't. The zerg should see the pylons going down...kind of an obvious cue to pull drones. If you've managed to lock the probe away behind two pylons and left yourself enough room to build 2 cannons, you've spent 500 minerals+probe to kill 300 minerals + maybe a drone (if it's still in range). It's a rare player that times cannons to finish just a few seconds afterwards. My personal response would be to let the hatch finish and rally lings to the opponent's base. In a more normal situation where the cannons are locked behind but will finish before the hatch, let them finish then cancel and go rebuild at the third. 500 minerals used vs 75.

I regularly hatch first against protoss. The majority of the time I get it up with little/no difficulty. Some games get weird when i cancel the nat, build at the third, cancel that and build somewhere random. Everyone's tech is so far behind it makes for interesting games. I do lose a small % of the time to cannon rushes, but for the economic edge I get in the rest of the games I feel it's worth it.

What do you do if instead of cannons someone cc blocks you?

Curse them for being a ****stabbing hermaphrodite and wind up going with a late pool+gas build. Half the time they cancel the cc, half the time they don't.

It doesn't appear as though the 2-3 seconds it takes a z player to pull drones to kill the pylon as it's going up has been factored into your equation.

Pwn vs. XSS

i uploaded these to my other channel (not the one with most of my casts) as it's just 2p2 stuff:

game 1 (3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7xk1s7BFMY

game 2 (4) part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFnw7ncCSUY
part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAkbd..._order&list=UL

not my best work and obviously it was a bo5 and not a bo7 like i thought

Actual part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAkbd..._order&list=UL

EDIT: Pretty good casting, esp for live.

You can cast my games v Derek whenever they happen if you want.

The 720p in those videos looks good.

Also, make more bm videos, those are fun to watch.

Then I got worked. Sad times.

I made a getting down on Friday reference this weekend IRL and it flopped pretty hard.

Well, the pylon is behind the mineral line at the natural. So it would take longer than that to pull drones. If drones are pulled I have to make a judgment call on whether I should cancel the pylon (or 2 cannons if the zerg pulled drones later) at the last second or try to force the issue with additional pylons and cannons.

How does the loss of mining time compare to the cost of a canceled pylon at that stage in the game?

The loss of mining time is probably more than the cost of a cancelled pylon but if it lets you get 2nd/3rd base up (vs 1 base forge and ffe respectively) really quickly it's certainly worth it for the zerg.

Also the pylon being behind the minerals doesn't make much difference by itself. It only matters if there's a second pylon denying access to it as there's plenty of room to get 4 drones on a pylon even when it's behind the mineral line.

Each drone mines about 40 minerals/minute. I pull 6 drones to deal with cannon rushers. Say I make the pull 5 seconds after the pylon starts. Call it another 5 to get down the ramp to where you can see them coming. That leaves you with 15 seconds to decide whether or not to cancel. Assuming you cancel at the last moment, I send drones back (+8 seconds we'll say? 3 to the nat ramp, 5 back to mineral line) I lose (28/60)*40*6=112 minerals. On the other hand, you've lost 25 minerals, the opportunity cost of that 100 minerals for 25 seconds, and possibly lost the probe. Meanwhile my hatchery is going to finish without further issue and I'm reasonably certain I won't face gateway pressure.

Nice casts. From what you said after the games I was expecting you to **** on me much more than you did lol

I generally only pull 4 to deal with cannon rushes unless I spot it a little late. If you pull 4 fairly close to the pylon being started you get it down well before cannons are up. You can pull more as soon as a second pylon/cannon starts going down if he decides to commit to it heavily.

I enjoyed the casts

Weird thing about the second game, I actually thing the banelings did way more damage in the 2nd engagement largely due to the mothership. It meant that instead of just a-moving and crashing into the front of the army they actually got a surround, doing way more damage overall. It's probably worth just move commanding past any army if you know you have enough lings/banes to get a full surround before attack moving.

I like to have spares to chase the probe. I feel like even with the extra lost mining time I'm still coming out miles ahead if I shut down the cannon rush.

edit: I was surprised the first attack was so ineffective. Looking at the rep, I lost ~20 banelings on 2 immortals on his right flank. The second time around my idea was to force him back to the mothership, a-move into his nat and basically follow the mothership with the banelings. Although I had no idea what his composition was, I did know it wasn't VRs, so I was in good shape.

lol was hopign to finally go on a solid run ocne facing masters players again tonight

3 close position zvts

as im writing this post make ti 4 close position zvts

i just left the last one tho

WEEEEEE

i managed to lose to a 7 pool close position (obv what else would someone do blindly close position when im on tilt) when i 10 pooled and got an earlier gas than him and had 2 spine crawlers up and he cut drones

LOL

i honestly cant believe what just happened in a zvp. im a loss for words to even explain it. im just going to fraps it and post the video.

you have sick swings karak, should take a break for a day or two imo =/

why? that will make me worse. im pretty near to starting a job soon and im prob gunna uninstall/quit as there's a bunch of IRL stuff i need to concentrate on. i just want to make masters first.

i just love the game though. like tonight i faild an all-in vs a toss because i misclicked my move command to the front of my base ont he edge of a cliff, causing all of them to rally in a u-turn back into my base and when i killed all his sentries and zealots i had 20 lings ready to strike and end in the game sitting on the edge of a cliff in my main. then i reset my rallys and tried again, but when i did my click on unit, shift-click, i accidentally shift-clicked on a unit that also died. so all my rallies broke and my units stayedi n my main. great stuff.

but im amazing so i out macro'd him anyways. he made a deathball, but i had an upgrade advantage roach/corruptora rmy and he was also very bad at forcefield. i wiped his entire army, killed 4 colossus, killed his building 4th and got into his main and all he had left were 6 gateways to warp in units, a robo and 6 stalkers. i mean ive got like 25 roaches right so it's over?

pretty awesome game im proud of myself. then he oddly blinks into my roaches. i dont understand why. all 6 stalkers die and get my overseer at the last second.

then he warps in 6 DTs and i have to leave and he sends DTs everywhere on the map, builds 285482345 cannons in the middle while im cleaning it up and chronos out 4 more colossi and HTs and stalkers.

amazing race.

8-14 on the night. im really good. masters soon! :-)

ALTHOUGH:

ill ahve to go back and check... but im pretty sure i had like 7-8 close position games tonight, which is essentially an auto-loss for me. i won one of them amazingly, but by the end of the night i was so disgusted with close position that i just was gging and leaving any close position vs terran and was all-inning any toss. im truly awful at close position zvz, but thankfully in nearly all of them villain blindly 10 pooled or lower. that's just variance. in looking at some of thsoe replays and from knowing the guys from other games i most likely beat them (the terrans especially) in pretty much any other position. so it's possible i just ran bad?

at least blizz has finally admitted (in the sen interview) that close position zvx is a problem and will be removed next season.

It's a video game. Play when you can.

thanks AK i had no idea that was an option. it's not like i said im playing when i can now before i start my summer clerkship/job/thing. staggering. (the truth is i actually enjoy the game and while i wont be playing much once i start work, i do want to learn what i can now so i can do casts and work on some other SC2 themed side projects i have going on)

either way, i made some special casts for 2+2 this morning. im uploading them overnight you guys better love them :-P.

What build order do you use against T? Is it static or does it change? I always use 14gas/13extractor and get out 4 lings right away. It is obviously not as good economically but it helps a whole lot with close position games, prevents any cheese, and allows a very safe expo.

It's definitely possible to hold a 2 rax in close positions going hatch first. It's not straight forward but it can be done. Going 14/14 or any variation on it puts you behind vs any standard opening. It's largely a preference thing but I hate being behind early, it makes holding off the stim/siege push absurdly tough, just as hard as holding the 2 rax going hatch first imo.

The main problem with close positions is taking a 3rd rather than anything early though.