Recently on ladder (masters) i encountered this strategy 3 games straight in a row by the same person.
Essentially the bo for this is pulling 4 drones off at 10 supply after overlord(i believe?) this timing coincides with when your supply depot is about to finish i think and when he reaches your base your rax should be 1/4 completed (based on map distance).
Now having seen this the first time i completely overreacted and thought he was trying to drone block me for a six pool (wasnt thinking straight) so i pulled off every scv except for 1 and tried to push him out of my base for an emergency depot wall off.
After 1 minute of trying and failing i realized he wasnt trying to six pool having seen no zerglings and it didnt help that the 2 scouting scvs i send forth to put proxy 11/11 rax were not in my base mining.
Due to extremely poor micro i lost 2 scvs and heaps of mining time and proceeded to lose the game in a ridiculous fashion with 3k resources lesser than him (He does a eco baneling bust in reaction to my banshee play).
Another thing to note, he steals both my gases after the harass is done (The whole point was him trying to snipe my rax scv). I won the other 2 games afterwards on metalopolis and shakuras because i microed 4 scvs much much better and choked him at the unfinished depot wall (2x2) and mineral walked(is that what they call it?) when my scvs turned red.
Also, his bo involves 17 pool and 18 hatch afterwards i believe.
So what im asking here is what is the best reaction to this type of play, [ I believe it was invented by ROOTCatz in Catz Vs Deth casted by HD quite some time ago (zvt) ]
I honestly dont think pulling 4 drones is worth it to be honest.
It may win the first time you play the person but should never win a second time.
Just do exactly what u did pull 4 to 5 scv and defend it.
he loses 4 drones around 10 supply and has to travel the whole map with them losing much more mining time plus whatever amount of drones your able to kill.
The reason catz did that strat was because the guy he was vs'ing forget who it was (possible starlife) always went for rax plus supply on bottom of the ramp and catz was able to do decent damage.
It works better with a smaller rush distance, hence why CatZ only did it on Steppes and Xel'naga. If you kill one scv, lose no drones and have 4 scvs pulled, it usually an about equal trade. Most players will pull more than 4, though, making it worthwhile. However, attempting it on Shakuras is laughable due to the rush distance.
If you aren't confident in your micro/multitasking just sent 5 scvs all on attack and remember to keep building scvs/depot/barracks. The mining time he loses is ridiculous. He's just banking on you screwing up.
I feel this strategy, esp on a map as long as xel naga (0:53 run distance for drone), is cheese. I might be wrong. If we look catz vs select in EGMC yesterday, select pull 4 scv vs Catz 3, build wall, then go back str8 back to mine. Catz basically run his drone to ramp then have to turn around. :S Could be wrong about the viability of this strategy tho.. just read altpig msg he says better than me lol
Last edited by DemisodaSPR; Tue, 5th-Jul-2011 at 2:41 AM.
Even the smallest donations help keep sc2sea running! All donations go towards helping our site run including our monthly server hosting fees and sc2sea sponsored community tournaments we host. Find out more here.