12.05.2012

The train of thought...

of Dronescouting ZvP

Hi - I just had this ridiculously satisfying game in which the Protoss simply straight out died to my Dronescout. I'll explain you why:
Hatchblock vs Nexusfirst

In general a Dronescout in ZvP is considered to be retarded  because you sacrifice economy to see things you would have scouted with Lings and Overlords anyways. It's a reasonable point of view though I am not a fan of sitting back. I am rather playing the offensive part.
Basically what you do is send your Drone out at 13supply (normal 14 pool -> hatch asap) and you scout.

So what adventages am I gaining from this?

There are alot of advantages that - in my opinion - are way bigger than one drone mining 100 minerals in early.
First advantage is the most obvious one. You get an early scout that can't be denied by the Protoss so you can instantly know whether he FFE'd or not. In that case (of him not going FFE and something funky instead) you can instanly adapt and you are not cought off guard by funky randomness.
A good example for that would've been qxc.SaSe vs (someone) at Dreamhack Winter in which he went 1 gate 1 gas 1 forge +1 zealots WITHOUT a wall! An early scout would've helped out (someone) alot in order to figure out what's coming!

Hatch cancel into win
Next perk you get from scouting early is the ability of building a hatchery. I have two exact replays that can be used as an example to show you the strength of building a hatch (scroll to the end if you want to watch them).
When doing this your opponent can do two things. Either he goes for a Nexus first or for a forge first into Nexus. You counter both of them differently. A Nexus first is basically a free win (as you can see in picture).
You immidiately block his wall (which is not even in construcion yet) with the Hatchery. The Protoss will be forced to either build alot of cannons or pulling probes.

With your 14 pool you are able to reinforce the f***ed up wall with Zerglings. You can slip in 6 Lings and a Drone to be a major pain in the ass without the protoss being able to stop it. From there on out you basically try to kill as many Probes (and in generally all the free sh*t) you can get 'cause as soon as the Stalker spawned you are not able to harras any further.
The Protoss is forced into a really bad economy and tech. He will probably try to come back with DT's or in general a stupid 2 base allin.
Important: Scout the wall after running in with an additional Ling (or OL) in order to see whether you are able to follow it up with Roach pressure or even a Baneling bust. 

blocked nat forces 2 more cannons
This particular strat does not work against Forge into Nexus though. In order to still make your Drone worth while you can still try to block his natural in order to delay his Nexus by ALOT. If you are able to get a queen you won by default. The queen will allow you to place a tumor which is delaying the Natural forever (no joke). You are only able to get the Queen out if your Hatchery has around 60% health left when it finnishes otherwise I would advice to cancel the Hatchery and build an Evolutionchamber instead (in the still existing creep).

Here are two replays in which I successfully pull of a block.
Natural Block
Wall Block
Acer.Nerchio with ChanManV explaining Hatchblock
I hope you enjoyed this post - Myu

11.05.2012

A little bit of a different post

for you guys today. 
I just want to give you all the advice to check out the stream of is.jEcho (jEchoTV). It's simuliar to GL.Snute Stream where I adviced you to check him out. It must be common for "newer" or "unkown" Streamers to care alot more about their viewers. He even has an hour of free replay analyzing with skype calls in the mean while = D - I really love him x3 I hope you enjoy him too!