[G] Belial's Comprehensive Guide to Beating 6 Pool!

7 Pool, Drone
6xLings
Send All but 2 Drones when Lings nearly finish
@140 Minerals, Double Extractor Trick 4xLings, send last 2 drones

- 10 Pool
- 10 Gas
- Overlord, Extractor trick
- Constant Lings, Morph Banelings at opponent's base

10 Gas, Drone
10 Pool, Overlord
Speed, Pull from Gas
Queen, Lings

- 10 Pool
@70 Minerals, Extractor Trick 1 more drone (don't cancel)
@70 Minerals, Extractor Trick 1 more drone (cancel both now - the reason you don't wait until @125 minerals is because you need to use up that larva quicker so you have 3 larva when pool pops, if you wait to @125 you will only have 2 when pool pops)
- 8+ Lings
- Send 8 of 12 drones when Lings are about to pop
- Make 1 Spine at each base of opponent or 2 Spines
- Don't make an overlord (you should be losing a few lings in engagements anyways, if you aren't, you are doing really good)

I always recommend drone scouting when going hatch first. It is not important to send it super early, and you are not sending it to see if the opponent went early pool (at least, you aren’t sending it so early that you would change your build order). I send a 14 drone scout - some prefer earlier, some prefer later, but 14 drone scout is really fine enough. I would only really only see earlier drone scouts on particular, 2 player, short maps (like 10 drone on XNC just because it’ll arrive right before you plant the hatch first), but again, they aren’t necessary (in this case, you can see a 10 pool in time, although I personally don’t even 10 scout on XNC, I’m just saying you could).

I know most koreans don’t drone scout, but against drone all-in variations of early pool, it is much easier if you put a drone in their base, although technically you don’t need it in there. It’s extremely useful, however, to identify the exact variation of their pool, something you can’t exactly discern without a scouting worker (without a scouting worker, you can't tell for sure if the 5 drones he brought were because he went 6 pool drone all-in, or he went 7 pool with drones and left 2 mining - and I can assure you now, that the answer to both are completely different and doing the wrong one will lose you the game; furthermore, a drone in their base is not 100% necessary, but makes things 100% easier).

As for the utility of a scouting worker in general when going hatch first, I’d also argue that it’s more useful (count to see how many lings the opponent who went hatch first started with so you know how much you can drone, if they went tech or not, etc) but since that’s another topic, I’ll leave that alone and say simply if you want to be able to beat possible drone all-in variations of early pool, you will need a drone scout.

Secondly, I recommend that when going hatch first, you send your 9 overlord slightly above your hatch, opposite the side with the mineral line, to spot for possible morphing spines. A morphing spine unseen can simply end the game for you, and just sending a drone around the creep is not smart, as the enemy drone can sneak in unseen and you can be distracted, simply not be that fast, or 2 spines can be morphing, or the opponent could be going hatch first and it would just hurt your econ too much. Another important part of this overlord is to scout the top of your ramp and the enemy’s position with his army if it gets to a base trade. You can definitely, always send the overlord to their natural or in front of their base (or wherever you normally put it) even on the largest maps in time to check for early unit movements or their natural timing once you have confirmed they aren't 6-12 pooling you and get it there in time, so don't worry.

Again, let me stress that sending a super early drone scout is not necessary. Yes, I will admit that a 10 drone scout can make things a bit easier against certain variations of early pool, seeing what's going on at 13 instead of 16, but it is completely unnecessary - remember, a later scout on a larger map also means a longer transit distance for their units. Also, some variations of early pool are perfectly okay for you to even plant the pool as late as 16, 17 supply, even before the hatch cancel, although I will admit a pool above 15 supply or before hatch cancel against certain variations is a bit harder.

The next response depends on what variation of early pool is occurring.

Once you confirm that an early pool is coming, you must cancel your hatch, cancel any extractor if it isn’t too late, and throw down your pool ASAP if you haven’t already.

The placement of your pool is extremely important as well. For ZvZ, I’m sure everyone is aware of the ‘Sim-City’ Pool, where you place it to ‘block’ a side of your mineral line. Sim City pools are stupid, they are only really useful if you are going 1 base roach, so stop doing that if you already have a habit of doing that. Anyways, where you want to place the pool is behind mineral line, preferably ‘tucked’ against a wall, with the least amount of surface area. Perfectly, it’s placed in a way so the opponent has to split his forces to fully engage it, so you can take the 50% of his ~8 lings with your 16 drones and get a few cheap shots off, and keep it alive longer. A good example of this was shown in Losira vs Kryix GSL May on Crevasse when Kryix had to split up his ling/drone force against Losira’s hatch first drone force to attack his pol, and loses half of his units in the process with his desperate all-in.

If you sim city the pool, it will block your workers from protecting it, and make it much harder for your drones to ‘escape’ from one side of the mineral line when the enemy comes through the other. When Sim City’d, the enemy can simply pound on your spawning pool and your drones will have a hell of a hard time to protect it, and each time you go out to protect it, they back off, and your mining time has been significantly cut due to having to go back and forth such a larger distance.

So when you scout the pool first, don’t worry, calm down, just take a second to place the pool smartly, because if you panic and just throw the pool down, like in the open on the creep, or ‘blocking in’ your mineral line, it will definitely come to bite you, as the spawning pool is the #2 priority of the enemy to attack (the #1 priority being to deny mining) and often times you will lose it, so having it up slightly longer can save you (sometimes you can even be denied from the pool even finishing).

Also remember that if you hotkeyed your morphing hatch, when you cancel it you will have a drone on the same hotkey as your hatches now, which will prevent you from selecting larva and morphing new units until you remove the drone from the hotkey. For this reason, I actually hold off on adding the hatch first to my hatch hotkey group until after I confirm the opponent’s build (a cancelled hatch becoming a drone again, and a hotkey group of a drone + hatch means zero unit production and an idle drone just Stop Stop Stopping when you hit S for larva). I’d actually recommend that at the start, you hotkey your morphing hatch first to your army hotkey, so you can quickly cancel it and send that drone to mine.

Finally, I’d recommend you patrol your scouting drone in their mineral line to see what is going on, or directly outside the mineral line, to get a drone count and see if he sends all his drones, or does something like keep 2 drones or morphs a defensive spine, for defensive purposes.

Each type of early pool requires a different response, and you can glean a lot of what is coming with your scouting worker.

There are essentially 3 different types of early pool:
1. The ‘Infinite Ling’ where they make very few workers and make no spines, and stream nonstop lings
2. Ling+Spine
3. Drone All-in

You can instantly tell it’s a drone all-in if you see them pull all of their drones (and it must be every single drone).

If they continue mining with 2 or more workers, than determining the variation becomes more specific. You can usually tell if they are either doing the ‘Infinite Ling’ or Ling+Spine variation based on if a scouting drone is in your base or not, and if there are only 5 or 6 drones in the base, and they don’t pull them, that is indicative of ‘Infinite Ling’. But the most obvious tell, is if they make that spine in your base or not!

If they are drone all-inning, or morphing spines, yes. I would recommend a 17 or 18 overlord, depending on how close your pool is to be finished (18 if it’s less than half is what I’d recommend). If they are doing an ‘Infinite Ling’ style, then making an Overlord is not recommended.

If you are unsure of what they are doing (they don’t bring their drones and doing a drone all-in, obviously), just hold off on the overlord. Really, 18 overlord will be just fine since you will still be waiting on the pool, and your hatch won’t die that fast that the larva for making a single overlord kills you.

While an ‘unrefined’ and simple 6 pool, no replacement drones, constant ling stream can seem newbish, I’d actually say that this is the pool easiest to lose to. This is because this build can quickly overwhelm you, as the ‘Critical Mass’ (when the opponent finally has enough forces to win an A-move against your 18 drones) can come quite quickly, and it’s easy to ‘slip up’ the required ‘answer’ and just screw up with a silly mistake.

The thing about Infinite Ling is that since he is mining at home, you can’t base trade, but because he isn’t making a spine, you aren’t forced to fight.

Here is the Build Order for the ‘best’ ‘Infinite Ling style, although it can come in many incarnations and is probably the most popular, particularly in the lower leagues, where people aren’t bothered to look up BO’s online and the player is perhaps innocent enough to simply ‘Do It’ rather than try to find the most perfect way to do a build (which is ironic, because I’d say this variation is the easiest to lose to).

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Generally, this build is better done on 2 player maps rather than 4 player maps, or maps with 2 spawns and can possibly detect which base you are at with overlord to close by air (Shakuras, Metal, ST) due to the total lack of drones.

Because the opponent is still mining, it is effective pressure when he denies you from mining. From cancelling the hatch you should have ‘enough’ money, but every time he denies mining time, is giving a bigger edge to him. Not that it will win or lose the game, or that you really need to keep mining, but it hurts.

Now remember, I said don’t make that overlord against this style. This is important (although honestly, not terribly important).

Try to keep mining as much as possible - you will want as much money as possible, and it’s very easy to lose a few drones (although it’s also possible to hold without losing anything). What is unique in this instance, is that lings are not the answer. Yes, very counter-intuitively, you will rely on a spinecrawler!

What, you say, I waited forever for one building to finish, you’re telling to wait on another? Everyone says that spines are the completely wrong thing to do! Well, yes, most often this is true, which in part is why this build took me the longest to find The Answer for, so let’s get on with it.

When the opponent first arrives with an initial 6 lings, he won’t have enough to win an A-move fight. So remain calm, and when he ‘pokes’ into your mineral line, just mineral walk half of the drones, so the others remain mining. If he’s dumb enough to attack, just mineral walk over him, but don’t box all of your drones, mineral walk to one patch then another, in an attempt to ‘catch’ him, because if he’s competent he won’t let himself be caught, and you just wasted a whole lot of mining time. Against this variation of early pool, you will appreciate (read:not need) more money, so try to mine as loooong as possible.

When his reinforcement lings come to make it a total of 10 lings, is when things start to get a little ‘hairy’. From here, mining will no longer be a priority, and while you can mineral walk and do cute things like that, the ‘best’ micro trick is to do a ‘Defensive Drone Flower’.

Since no name has been coined for this, we shall call it “Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death”. To execute this trick, select all of your drones, and repeatedly right click on a mineral patch (this is why I said against this type of pool, you need to click a lot!). Preferably, you select a ‘recessed’ mineral patch - you know, how on many mineral lines, there’s like a group of 3 mineral nodes, and the one in the middle is sort of ‘back’ a bit? Yea, click on that one, as if you click a mineral node that’s by itself, your drones won’t stack up perfectly, but if you pick one of these recessed nodes, not only will your drones stack better, but it creates a tighter choke for the opponent to engage through.

Once the opponent has a Critical Mass of lings, you will want to just execute Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death. If the opponent is dumb enough to actually engage your Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death, he will simply die - as all of your drones are stacked up all on one spot, every time you hit A-move, all 18 drones will attack on the same target at once, which only 1, maybe 2 or 3 lings can hit at once (1 if you pick the right mineral patch to do this trick). 18 x 5 damage = 90 damage. That’s enough to kill any ling in range instantly. Go back to stacking, and if he’s still dumb enough to be attacking snap again with Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death! Quite quickly, your 18 drones can melt 20+ lings if done perfectly, and the opponent will be scratching his head.

But more often than not, he won’t be stupid enough to engage (actually to be honest, on ladder, he will be stupid enough to engage and you win!), so you are just doing it until the pool pops and to stay alive. This will force the opponent to back off, and it gives you critical time for the pool to pop. If he attacks the hatch, don’t worry about it, and if he attacks the pool, you can attack him and force him to respond to the drones. Using good pool placement, this can cause unfavorable engagements where he has to back off for a second to regroup, and then when he’s regrouped, you back off and go back to executing Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death - buying you more of that critical time.

He won’t be able to kill the pool, and if it survives long enough for you to plant a spine and get a few lings, you’ll be okay to just remake it (you can also queue a queen and second spine before it goes down to be safe during the time you have no pool, as you’ll have a huge macro lead).

Once the pool pops is when things get tricky, and just right when a Critical Mass of lings will arrive that will kill anything but a perfect Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death, even a well executed mineral walk.

What you need to do, is make a single spine crawler, inside the mineral line. If you make it outside the mineral line, he will kill it quite easily, but if you make it inside the mineral line, any time he tries to attack it, you can mineral walk and deal enough damage to make him back off, attack your drones instead of the spine, and in general buy enough time for the spine to pop. You can also right click the morphing spine with your drones, then hit ‘Hold Position” so that the enemy will aggro onto the morphing spine, and be unable to reach it due to the ‘Hold’ drones (although honestly this isn’t the best trick to do). He should have enough lings to take on a mineral walk, so all you are doing is mineral walking to do a bit of damage, and mineral walking slightly further again to get the hurt drones out of aggro.

While the spine is morphing, you can also be making lings. Making the spine takes priority over making lings, and with doing Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death, it’s hard to fit in all the micro to make lings on top of everything else! Be extremely careful not to have all your drones on a hotkey and make the spine, and then hit ‘1-right click right click ….’ as the spine will cancel due to that drone being issued a new order, and also be careful not to just have your drones idling by, getting attacked, while you attempt to make the spine, as your own drones can prevent the spine from going down. The easiest way to make the spine, is to just have all your drones on one 1 hotkey, and a special drone on it’s own hotkey, particularly for this task. An easy way to do that is hotkey all your drones when you first identify the early pool variation, and then make the 18th drone, when morphing as an egg, on another hotkey.

When making lings - and remember, the spine takes priority over lings - it’s easiest when you add them to the same hotkey/grouping as the drones. At most, you will have 6 lings pop out against some 10+ number of lings, and that won’t do anything for you, so you will have to ‘hide’ them within the Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death.

It’s quite easy to screw up on this though - sometimes a stupid drone will just block the spine forever, or you lose a bunch of drones on accident because you tried to make them move away long enough for you to make a spine. In this sense, this is why I say this pool is the ‘hardest’ to deal with, but with practice and/or patience, you will easily beat it, and when done perfectly, you can come away further ahead against this pool than any other. It’s not necessary the most micro intensive pool to deal with, but definitely the easiest to screw up and lose against.

Once the spine pops, it’s game over! You can easily come out with 15+ drones, and even all 18 is possible against the perfect 6 pooler, against his 5 drones. It’s okay if you are supply blocked, you make the overlord quickly and from there you have total control of the game. They will likely still have lots of lings, so you can follow up with banelings or speedlings.

Of course, you can always just make 2 spines instead of 1, if you aren't comfortable with your ability to hold yet. Since zerglings are essentially useless - you will never overcome his production of lings until a queen's larva inject pops, which won't be anytime soon, and he's constantly streaming lings in - it's perfectly fine to make 2 spines and zero zerglings.

And make sure to always cancel if he's about to kill a spine. It's perfectly okay if you have to totally reset and cancel the spine that was almost done, and it's even okay if you actually just lose it - it takes a lot of zerglings to be able to take on a mineral walk. It's okay if you lose 10+ drones trying to protect the morphing spine, as he is only on 6-8 drones himself, and a defensive spine can even up if he's a drone or two ahead by allowing you to just get defensive banes, if the game goes on, and get more drones instead. But hopefully you should've kept every drone alive ^^

And that’s GG!

In short, sans explanation of the why
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The thing about someone who brings drones to attack, is that it no longer matters if he uses lings to deny mining, as he isn’t mining himself. This makes matters much easier and simple.

So as I already mentioned, there are essentially 2 decisions that you can make in a ZvZ against early pool, and micro is not an issue: Run away, or Fight.

The following is the most optimal build order for the drone all-in, courtesy of FameToFlame aka Bad_Habit:
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If the opponent is bringing all of his drones, you will need to run away. In fact, you will base trade. Try to mine until the very, very last minute, but once it’s too much just mineral walk to their base. If his units snap at you, such as in transit, do not worry, none of them will die and the health will regenerate. You can always try to juke and dodge him, but it is important to run faster rather than elusively.

You can also drone flower to buy more time for your morphing pool, and if the opponent is stupidly aggressive, you can outright win if he attacks your Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death. Be sure to leave before the spine pops, as that is the best counter to it, but yes, 16 drones will beat 7 drones + 8 lings when using Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death, but losing drones in this part of the game will hurt.

Also, if he does a drone all-in without a spine, you can simply do a Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death to stall for your own lings (and maybe even a queen, or treat it like a Infinite Ling pool) and win. Since he won’t be reinforcing with more lings, you will actually have enough drones to win with a Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death if he’s dumb enough to attack it, so I suppose that’s how you beat drone all-ins without spines, but you usually aren’t so lucky to come across someone that dumb, and you might as well be safe and do the following response anyways.

The best response of the opponent is to kill your pool ASAP, so if he gives chase or dillydallies, that’s just better for you. You should have well over 300 minerals banked due to the cancelled hatch and extra mining, and if you were pro you would’ve had all your drones return minerals before you ran away and you would’ve mined until the last second, giving you even more money (just right click the hatch before running away to return the last minerals, don’t worry, you won’t lose any drones because you will just mineral walk them away afterwards). If he actually chases you though, just run circles around the map until you’ve made a million lings and then rejoin forces and fight.

Now. This is where the scouting drone is so important, particularly on larger maps. On maps like Tal Darim, it is possible for the opponent to kill your pool (and if you didn’t drone scout, you wouldn’t even know where to go to base trade) before your workers get to his base. The reason for this, is because if he makes a spine in your base, you simply cannot engage there - so you must create a place where he cannot engage. While theorycraft wise you don't 'need' a spine because eventually you'll have enough lings, it is possible he out-micro's your lings when they hatch, so you'll need it for the stalemate if you lose too many lings when they hatch. It also makes things much easier, such as if they try to force a stalemate by not finishing off your hatch so they can keep their own spine on creep indefinitely, to prevent your eventually superior force of drones+lings from killing him off.

Sometimes people leave 2 drones at home. Generally, this becomes a “Ling+Spine” pool instead, and as such requires that response instead, but if he doesn’t have a ling there shooing your drone off or have a defensive spine before you, you can just make it away from his 2 mining drones and that should help you out (2 drones only kill a morphing spine if they start on it absolutely immediately). If he brings all of his drones, but leaves a ling at home to shoo off your scouting worker, you can extractor trick it repeatedly until your drones arrive (just send 1 or 2 drones, as just 2 healthy drones beat a single ling, immediately when you see him send all his drones, and keep the rest mining at home for the very last second, so you don't lose your pool before it finishes morphing, and so you can bank more money).

You can also make the spine out of sight. I don’t recommend ‘cheesy’ or ‘coinflip’ answers to win games, but in this case, it’s not - the further from the mineral line, the more you deny mining, and with just 2 drones at home (or even less), he can’t kill it time, even if he decides to make lings at home. The point is to get it up ASAP - of course, the point of this guide is solid gameplay, so I’m not encouraging something like sneaking a spine as the only way to win. It is certainly easier though, so go for it if you can.

The next step of the base trade is quite important. You need to be morphing lings during this whole time, and you need to take care to rally them with utmost care so that they do not get attacked by the early pooler’s spine or units. If you can safely get 2 lings out of the base, and re-united with your drones, you will have enough units to simply a-move and win. If you cannot safely get 2 or more lings out, you will not win a battle without good micro and you may have to settle for a stalemate by camping the top of his ramp with your drones on hold position and your superior number of drones threatening a mineral walk on the cramped ramp, or hope the opponent gets antsy and tries to kill your spine while you put extractors all over the map and you go kill his spine.

If you can get 2 or more lings out, you can have a large enough force to simply kill him when the creep dissapears and he is forced to uproot his spine to keep it alive as his last building.

Make sure to uproot your spine when the creep starts to dissipate, or it will die (it won’t lose health if uprooted, even off creep). Sometimes you’ll even win because the opponent is too dumb to uproot his spine, which should be his last building, or doesn’t even make a spine and you just kill his pool+hatch. The opponent should not have enough money even for an extractor, and you can often just focus fire his spine. I would recommend that you do not make extractors on the map, as you want to keep as many units as possible. If the opponent splits his forces up, ever, try to engage one of the groups.

Famously, Losira held Kryix’s 8 pool twice in the same series going hatch first in the May GSL. What he did, was ran away and rallied lings to his drones, and then attacked when he pooled up enough lings. This response is okay against drone pulls, but will not work if the opponent morphs a spine in your base. If the opponent is not morphing a spine with his drone all-in, you can choose to stay close-by, and try to attack his units like when they are focusing a building and get a few free hits off, and even rely on good micro to come out further ahead, but just ‘Run Away’ until you have lings pop, and then engage the opponent. This is essentially the same scenario as a base trade - you are just staying away from the opponent until enough lings pop, and then you engage the opponent where there is no spine (either because he didn’t make one, or because he is forced to uproot when creep goes away). Because Kryix didn't make a spine, Losira was able to threaten with his drones an unfavorable engagement, and so Kryix wasn't able to kill off enough lings when they hatched (he killed only 1 of about 8 that were made), and so that was pretty poor by Kryix too.

The point of the spine is to protect yourself in the case the opponent denies you from getting enough lings out, or if you make a mistake, or get completely out-micro'd. Think of the spine as 'insurance' - to make sure that at worst, you will get a stalemate. Without a spine, it is quite possible you can lose, but with a spine, you can make sure you will at worst walk away with a stalemate. It can also secure a win if the opponent tries to force a stalemate, which he can definitely do. It also makes things a lot easier - but it is definitely necessary. There definitely are choices the opponent can make, but if you have a spine, it puts YOU in control, and allows a stalemate to become a win, and a loss to be a stalemate.

The opponent will do everything in his power to deny your zerglings from coming out. It is important you get at least 2+ lings out. Sometimes, and particularly on some maps, he can deny your lings from running off the ramp due to how the larva is positioned in relation to the ramp - it's near impossible for him to surround and deny every ling from popping, but it is possible for him to deny you from re-uniting your forces. The opponent can just not kill your hatch so the creep stays alive, so he can keep his spine, and then deny your army from re-uniting, to force a stalemate. If you were able to hatch at least 4 lings, you can win with a rooting spine + 18 drones + 4 lings, but if you weren't able to get 4 or more lings, you may have to settle for the stalemate.

It is okay if you can't exactly re-unite your forces - just keep the lings alive by juking around in the base. This may require some multi-tasking, but remember to stay focused on keeping at least 2 lings alive (you can regen the life, so don't worry about getting hit).

If you can escape with 2+ lings, just re-unite your forces, and attack after your hatch dies and the creep dissapears and he's forced to uproot (sometimes people are too dumb to uproot, and a rooted spine off creep will die while an unrooted one won't, so if he isn't uprooting just let it die and take the easy win). If he tries to force a stalemate by keeping your hatch/creep alive, bring your spine over (yes, slowly, but surely) and take on his spine+10lings+6drones with a rootingspine+18drones+4 lings. You can either focus down his spine, or simply straight up fight - a rooting spine, 4 lings, 18 drones, and possibly some broodlings, will beat his rooted spine, 6 drones, and 10 lings.

Just make sure that when the engagement occurs, you either use micro such as at least a single mineral walk, or the drones that are doddling in the back, manually command them over for a better surround.

So let me wrap up the exact numbers for you, since the opponent will always have 1 spine, 6 drones, and 10 lings:
18 Drones + 2 Lings crush 6 Drones + 10 Lings
18 Drones + 1 Lings loses.

18 Drones + 4 Lings + 1 Rooting Spine beat 6 Drones + 10 Lings + 1 Rooted Spine
18 Drones + 3 Lings + 1 Rooting Spine lose to 6 Drones + 10 Lings + 1 Rooted Spine

18 Drones beat 10 Lings with about 9 left.

There isn't much micro the opponent can do with his largely ling army, but there is a lot of micro you can do with drones (mineral walking, better surrounding). In the above scenarios, the only used micro was to correct the issue that when you have 18 drones engaging, what usually happens is just half of them engage and the other half bounce around in the back. The minimal micro I used was just grabbing a buggy 'chunk' and pulling them over and behind to get a better surround. This is very basic micro, and using actual micro like mineral walking, which is what you should be doing, would make things more effective. It wouldn't change the numbers too much, sadly, but you can maybe get away with one less ling if your micro'ing much better than the opponent.

And that’s GG!

The Stalemate
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In short, sans explanation of the why
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Note: There is a particularly vicious type of early pool build, similar to this, where they leave 2 drones and a single ling at home. I will discuss this in Ling+Spine, as it is COMPLETELY different

The thing about Ling+Spine is when he doesn’t pull every drone, is that (besides that you can’t base trade since he is mining at home) the spine forces you to fight.

This is the most micro intensive pool to deal with, but favor is on your side. The following is the build order for the most optimal ling+spine early pool - best done with 2 spines, actually.

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When the opponent does not pull all his drones, then quite simply you can take his first 6-8 lings with your 15-18 drones. When the opponent makes a single spine along with his lings, simply bring your drones out of the mineral line ‘opposite’ the side he tries to attack through, and a-move out in the open, and then dedicate 4 drones to the single spine. Most likely he won’t be dumb enough to actually engage your drones, but this will force him to cancel the spine as he can’t stop your 4 drones from attacking it. Don’t worry about engaging on creep - taking the time to move off creep is too much time wasted (mining time, mind you) and it’s not that big a deal, and spines can only be made on creep so you’ll have to fight on creep anyways. This is all there is to dealing with single spine pools with no drones pulled, so the rest of this section will be talking about double spine pools with no drones pulled.

You do NOT want to Run Away against no drones pulled, as the opponent is still mining, and when he denies you from mining, he is just getting a further and further macro lead to do whatever he wants with (even if it’s just 2 drones).

Now there are all sorts of micro tricks out there, and in Bad_Habit’s thread he even discusses a cute ‘hold position’ sort of micro, similar to pulling back units in a ranged vs ranged battle. Quite simply, not only is this recommended micro of his extremely difficult to execute, but it’s simply not the best thing you can be doing.

I’m not saying that “Oh this micro is 2 hard, so don’t do it” - what I’m saying is that this micro is completely useless, because there are better things to do, that just happen to be easier to execute.

Introducing Belial’s BossWalk! This new micro trick has just been discovered, by Yours Truly, and is extremely powerful with dealing with Ling+Spine variations of earlypool.

Now we all know how to deal with Ling + Single Spine right? You just dedicate 4 drones onto the spine, and attack with the rest - but what about Double Spine? Dedicating 4+4 drones out of ~15 drones means you are attacking his 6 lings with only ~7 drones - not a favorable engagement! He will pick off those 7 drones, then pick off 4 of the worker drones, then pick off the other 4 with reinforcing lings - Oh No’s!

So here’s how to do Belial’s BossWalk - When 2 (or hey, just one) spine is being morphed, simply select all of your drones, and position them so that his lings, and the spine, is in between your drones, and a mineral line. You can use your main’s mineral line for ease, but if you are really boss, you can use other mineral lines, like the mineral line in the natural.


Make him the monkey - uhh girl is the spine, guy is your drones, and just imagine a mineral line behind the spine ^^

Now, right click a mineral patch - the opponent will be forced to run away lest he get caught in a perfect drone surround and lose all his lings. If the opponent runs away, as expected, immediately right click on the morphing spine with all your drones. Bam! You should quickly take out the morphing spine, if not simply just one shot it! One spine down, rinse, repeat with the other spine. If he actually tries to engage with his lings, even better, you catch all his lings in a perfect surround. Finish off the trapped lings, and then finish off the spines.

If your drones start to get hurt, you can also just shift them just a inch away so ‘fresher’ drones are engaging, but don’t micro too much or you’ll simply lose too much health because you are being cute and trying to mineral walk every drone every time they get hit.

When done perfectly, you should be able to click on mineral patches, without even watching your drones, and simply hit a-move when you know the drones will be on top of the morphing spine (You know, you know how fast drones move, so by clicking on the mineral node, you know they will cover the distance to the spine right..... now! Get it?). If the lings are there, you catch them, if they ran off, you look back at the drones, which should be on top of the morphing spine, and just right click the spine. Eventually you can even be as dynamic as use multiple mineral lines, using whichever mineral line is best for the orientation of your drones, the morphing spine, and his lings.

Once your pool pops, simply make a bunch of lings. If a spine happens to finish, don’t worry, you should have done at least enough damage while it was morphing that with your lings and drones, you can finish it off without taking enough damage that you’d lose the game. If the spine is not in reach of the mineral line, you can just continue mining and wait for a queen to tank, to pop, or more lings to pop out - a hatch getting to 100 HP is perfectly okay.

And that’s GG!

In short, sans explanation of the why
+ Show Spoiler +

Belial’s SoulCrusher 7 Pool
This build is something I’ve come up with, after internal testing. It traces it’s origins to the Bad Habit 7 pool Drone all-in, with theorycrafting and practical testing molding it into something similar, yet completely different. Here’s the build order!

+ Show Spoiler +

Now upon first glance, this seems like the exact same build. It’s NOT!

When your scouting worker sees that he keeps 2 drones at home, you’ll want to harass them, and deny mining as much as possible until you can make a spine. It’s important to cut his mining time down, or else he’ll get additional lings out early enough to deny the spine. By keeping those 2 drones mining, it means you can’t base trade anymore since he can make a spine before your drones arrive, or reinforce the fight and make lost mining time hurt.

Now - you see 2 drones mining. If he doesn't camp a single defensive ling to shoo away your scouting worker, then that is actually completely different. Just snip at the drones to deny mining to deny him from hatching a defensive ling, or make the spine far away. I'm not advocating a coinflip decision that's just banking on an unattentive opponent (granted, you can get away with it a lot on ladder and it does make things easier!), the merit is that it's further from the mineral line, making mining time even more cut for the 2 drones.

But, however, the deadliness of this build is the single defensive ling, denying any morphing spines. 2 drones and a single ling can definitely deny a morphing spine.

Technically, if they leave 2 drones at home mining, it becomes a Ling+Spine attack. Remember, they only have 7 drones (one is inevitably a spine, so if it's a 6 or 7 pool, regardless, meaning 4 drones maximum as part of an attack force), so sending 4 instead of 6 is a big deal - it's actually so large a deal, that, you can fight him head on. Assuming you can't take advantage of no defensive ling at his base to deny spines and get the ez-win like all drone all-in pools are, you will have to treat this like a Ling+Spine attack, and utilize the Belial BossWalk.

Even if he sends his units back to home to mine, and the spine gets up, it should be a scenario where, with even drone counts, and even increased mining time, you will be in the lead because of the cancelled hatch and the whole 18 drones mining all at the start for so long.

The difference, is that you WILL need lings, and lots of them. As soon as pool pops, make lots and lots of lings, and even saving 3 larva to be ready is a good idea.

I would recommend you don’t make an overlord against someone who leaves 2 drones at home and a single ling.

This is the only early pool that I ever lose to, although much more often than not, I beat it, whereas the other early pool builds I beat 100% of the time.

What happens if a Spine does get up?
Sometimes you can’t help it, and the spine just happens to get up. It’s okay, don’t panic, you should have done enough damage to have significantly lowered it’s health, and even if it’s been placed well, to deny mining, you should have enough stockpiled money to be okay.

Usually, you can use your remaining lings+drones to just surround the spine, and it’s often better to wait until a few more lings to pop rather than attack earlier - a pool, or hatch, both have a lot of life, and it’s quite okay if you let it drop to even 1/10th of it’s life, particularly if you happen to have a larger rather than smaller army.

But, if you see that spine morphing, and the opponent still has a significant army, it may be smart for you to start your own spine slightly out of range of it, or within range if you can make it early enough (usually you still have significant time on your pool so you won’t be able to make it the same time he makes his). You can use an uprooted spine to start rooting, and use it to tank damage while you rush in the rest of your forces. Either the spine will tank lots of damage for your ling+drone army to deal with it, or his spine will attack your ling+drone army so your spine can deal with it. Either way, if your spine ends up having more life than his, you should back away right then and there, and always try to pull away your drones when you know you have enough for it to go down.

Obviously, you want to make sure you don't have it so that your drones are surrounding the spine so much that they deny the lings from doing damage, as lings do more DPS than drones, but this is a 'good problem' to have, as it means you have so much stuff. If this is the situation, then you are probably winning - but of course, it's always better to pull back a drone or two or all if they are preventing however many lings you may have, from engaging. And if the lings are blocking your drones from getting in on the action, then you'll want to just run them away so they don't get hit. Even still, your drones are a priority, you wouldn't want a situation where your opponent still has a chance in the game because you're left with 5 drones!

It takes 8 lings to surround a spine. It takes 7 drones to fully surround a spine.

Now when drones are pulled obviously the game is quite over one way or the other, but sometimes you get into a situation where the game looks like it will just continue. You will need a follow-up!

So the best follow-up, is to get gas asap, as soon as you know you will hold. The earlier the better, and I’ll often make the gas before any lings are out, but when those first 6 lings are about to pop and push him back, or when the queen or spine is about to pop, are early enough too. Now, you can decide to either respond with speed, or banes.

Also, you will want a queen. Now, a queen is never a good idea to save your ass, but if the game is going to continue on (either you took a lot of losses, or the opponent is a stubborn asshole and he didn't drone all-in) you will of course need it. I would recommend getting the queen only when you know you are completely safe, or if you feel you are 'close enough' to holding that you are completely confident you don't need a spine or additional lings, and a queen would be sufficient to hold. Again, I must stress, I never recommend making a queen to save your ass, but if you feel confident that a queen will be all you need to push him back, and you don't need to rely on lings or a spine, and you are a total boss, go for it. Of course, you are going to win anyways, trying to 'further your macro lead' by making a queen instead of lings/spine is silly when you have 10+ drone advantage anyways, but, whatever.

If he has been aggressively reinforcing, I would recommend that you make a spine in your mineral line (if you haven't already), and get banelings. If the opponent got gas himself and transitioned into speedlings, banes are even more useful.

If the opponent is attempting to drone up (he has not been reinforcing and streaming lings all game long), just get ling speed, and simply overrun the opponent. Even defensive banes on what, the 10 drones he might have, won’t be able to hold against speedlings streaming in.

I don’t recommend expanding and trying to just macro quickly. It’s quite common for a 6 pool to simply transition into a roach all-in or some other type of all-in, and you can usually end the game with the huge macro lead you’ll have even with both of you on 1 base. However, there are two instances I’d recommend expanding, one is when the opponent gets double queen to block scouting. In these instances, simply get around 25-35 drones, and make pure units, and be sure to sac overlords to check if he’s going lair (1 base muta can be quite lame). No matter what he’s doing, with an evo chamber and 2 bases you will hold whatever he does.

The other is if you know the opponent is going to do a 1 base roach all-in as a follow up (yes you read that correctly - speedlings, 2 spines, and 2 hatch larva, especially with at least 1 queen injecting, will stop any 1 base roach all-in cold, especially if you have the macro lead from holding a 6 pool, you can read other guides in how to hold 1 base roach all-ins (hint hint, you use speedlings and 1-3 spines). This is actually the most common follow-up to a 6 pool.

If it’s late enough, you may want to put down a spore, and it’s a good idea to patrol a roach or ling around your base against Nydus play. 2 queens blocking the ramp is usually indicative of one of these two plays, or just 1 base roach massing (to which 2 base roaches will crush, or just 3 spines really).

I’ve already given how to beat early pools, and the build orders for them, so I’ll go over what an early pooler ‘should’ be doing to best execute their strategy, and what defenders should expect. I’ve practiced with a ton of people in the process of writing this guide, and I can tell you that there is a HUGE difference between a Diamond and Low Masters 6-pooling. After finishing this guide, I can tell you for sure that the guy who got to GM with 6 pool, he must have done it very well, and I’m sure he does it better than anyone else does. I would actually contend that anyone below Masters cannot 6 pool correctly, unless they have spent considerable practice time in customs, with a friend, dedicated, to perfecting their 6 pool. I would even say that most Masters do not correctly know how to 6 pool.

An easy example of why, is, for example, most people below Masters do not drone pair, and that makes a huge difference (I'll explain more later into this part though). Anyways.

The biggest priority for an early pooler is to deny mining. The more you deny mining, the bigger the lead you get, the less lings they can make. Makes the job easier.

Once you deny mining, the next target is between a pool and morphing eggs, depending on the stage of the game. If the pool is morphing, go for the pool. If the pool is finished, go for eggs. Generally, the opponent will have X amount of money, and when the pool pops they will spend it all off, so after those initial 3 lings, they won’t have money for many more. Finish off the next 2-3 sets of lings they attempt to get out, and then continue with the pool.

You will often want to take down the pool as fast as possible, but do not lose *anything* in the process of doing so! Do not target the pool if his drones are hanging around nearby, you will want to chase them off before targeting the pool.

Never target the hatch! The hatch takes too long to take down, and it’s never going to change the outcome of the game. Once the pool is down, go after the opponent and kill off their remaining forces. It’s better to engage his smaller army then let him add a few lings to it, making it much deadlier. The larva from a hatch will also hang around after the hatch goes down, which further makes targetting the hatch pointless.

If you see the opponent morphing lings, don’t target the hatch or the pool, just hang around the eggs, completely surround them with your units, wait and hold position. You cannot let them escape, don’t worry about the hatch, if they aren’t mining, they can’t morph infinite units, and just kill them when they hatch (you won’t be able to kill the eggs off). If the pool has completed, do not target the pool, hang around the larva and simply wait, patiently, and then set up a full surround on the eggs so when they pop, you can hit hold position, then attack, to completely surround the new lings and drones. If he isn’t mining, he won’t have much more than 100 minerals anyways, so once you’ve sniped about 2-4 lings, you can work on the pool hassle free.

Don’t ever chase the opponent if he runs away until after their pool goes down. You are just wasting your time, and NEVER engage Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death. You should also never engage the opponent with your initial units, only engage once you have reached Critical Mass. All you are doing is denying mining, and if you can do that, eventually you’ll have 50 lings against 18 drones, and then you can win. The biggest mistake I see of early poolers is that they actually ever engage (or worse, engage too early). You would be totally fine to actually never engage the opponent, ever, and as a general rule, you should never engage unless you have a spine up to cover you (with Infinite Ling, just wait until you have a huge critical mass, as your production of lings will be either greater or even the opponent until he gets a queen up).

If you are doing a drone all-in variation, I would strongly recommend you keep 2 drones mining and a single defensive ling. You are going to have an overwhelming force, so keeping 2 drones at home is fine. The hardest drone all-ins to deal with aren’t the ones that make a spine first thing, but the ones who make at-home defenses to deny the base trade (which is the only option for the defender). As soon as the opponent starts to run away, start making a defensive spine. The opponent can overwhelm it though with 18 drones, but it should help to lower the numbers.

If you are doing a ling+spine variation, go for 2 spines, and put both of the spines as far away as possible from eachother. Never let your lings get even attacked a single time, and be content to lose one of the spines if you can at least keep the other. With reinforcing lings, you might be able to win a micro battle as long as you deny mining as much as possible. Your spines should always cover the mineral line, and making a spine at the edge of their creep (besides being sneaky, which is great if you can do it and see no overlord hanging over their main) is not a great idea - you can either protect the spine, or you can’t, and being forced to cancel really hurts you. Just wait until you have a substantial army over, enough to ‘cover’ the spine, and make it in his face, so to speak, right behind the mineral line. Otherwise you just halfway hurt their hatch, and halfway hurting a hatch doesn’t mean anything.

Finally, it’s extremely important that you drone pair, and drone split. The ‘average’ 6 pooler will make a 47 or even 52 second 6 pool, but with good drone pairing and splitting, you can make a 43 second 6 pool, and with perfect pairing and 3 drone split you can get a 37 second 6 pool - that’s a 15 second difference! That’s HUGE! It’s really a big, big deal. It’s not crucial you drone pair and drone split as the defender, but of course, it always helps, but it IS crucial if you are 6/7/8 pooling. Check the timing of your pool - is your 6 pool down at 37 seconds? Also, you’ll want the drone sent to the spot before you hit 200 minerals, don’t send it at 200 minerals and have it planted at 220. Spare putting it somewhere clever and just put it as close as to where the drone was mining or by the side of the hatch (duh, they see 6/7 drones only, so ‘hiding’ the pool is useless).

If you are a 6 pooler, spend a few games just checking out when your pool goes down. Compare even old replays. What time is it down? Can you shave the time down? This is really crucial, and I've heard of platinums who were content to do 1:02 6 pools.

As you can see, it has nothing to do with ‘godly micro’ to hold a 6/7/8 pool with hatch first. It’s just reacting correctly, and when you react correctly, it’s quite simple.

Also, regardless of this thread, the best way to beat a build (like 6 pool) is just practice with a friend! 6 pools are over within 3 minutes usually, so it’s not hard to spend an hour practicing 6 pool with a friend. It’s surprising how even many pros haven’t practiced against it.

If you have an questions (besides about me being a rube) please ask! If you are still having trouble against early pools after reading through this thread, or having trouble executing the above advice, or have come across a ‘new’ variation of early pool, please post the replay and we’ll look over it. I’ll even guarantee that any bronze level player, barring handicaps, can beat my Masters 6/7/8 pool of any variation on Steppes - if you can’t get it on your own, I’ll help you out (you have to send replays proving you tried, you followed what I stated in the guide, and are failing miserably and aren’t even close, and you posted the replay in here and no one else could help you out, lest I be inundated with replay help from everyone who doesn’t even play much).

And to state the obvious, please don’t PM me on B.net about me being wrong or prove it. I get too many PM’s now for talking about this already before making this official guide where people have said “You are wrong, you can’t beat drone all-ins”. I will just respond saying “You are correct sir, I am a fat liar” because chances 100% are that I’ve hashed it with someone who is a much better player than you, and I already know the answer. I don’t need to show a hold of hatch first vs a diamond level extremely common bad habit’s 7 pool drone all-in to everyone on ladder, and quite frankly it’s extremely rude. Also, don’t ask me to ‘Show You’ - watch the replays, try it out yourself, and if you are still having trouble after your provide replay proof in this thread, after following my guide, I’ll help you out, but PM me through TL, not B.net.

Of course, 9/10/11 pools beat Hatch First, so please, don’t post in here saying I’m a liar because your 10 pool is so gosu. A 10 pool and a 6 pool are completely different.

The following replays occurred on Steppes of War against a Masters Zerg opponent. If anyone thinks they have a variation of 6/7/8 pool that is ‘unbeatable’ by Hatch first on Steppes, please PM me and we’ll hash it out. If you think the person in the replay is an incompetent scrub (besides myself, I know everyone hates me and thinks I’m a scrub anyways), and you think you can do better, please PM me and we’ll make a higher quality replay and we can post it here (obviously you winning a single time on ladder and then you flaunting it here isn’t validation).

Hopefully, this thread will serve the end that we will never see an early pool ever again. But if you do see it, you get some free ladder points. I only wish I could get to GM by never losing to 6/7/8 pools lol.

The Power of Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death

This replay is of a completely bad Masters Zerg doing a 52 second Bad Habit 7 Pool where he doesn’t double extractor trick - in other words, this replay is actually complete trash, because it’s on XNC and the opponent only did a single extractor trick and micro’d horribly and made a million mistakes. The virtue of this replay, however, is proving how good Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death is, and I actually don’t lose a single drone against his 8 Lings + 6 Drones in a fight. A stupid engagement by him, the guy was a complete idiot, but as an example of Belial’s Floral Arrangement of Death, how easy it is to execute, and how strong it is, this is a good replay. I would recommend watching this to learn the virtue of this micro trick.

On a side note, I wouldn’t recommend doing this micro trick against Drone all-ins because most people aren’t so stupid to engage, and will wait for the spine to come up, but the only reason the game unfolded this way was because how aggressive he was when his initial lings arrived and I was just milking the last possible mining time I could before running away, and to my pleasant surprise he actually just engaged.

My Average APM was 96 and my APM generally sat around 240, but literally, all this was, was me just having all my drones selected, and spamming right click on a mineral patch, then hitting ‘a-move’, then going back to spamming until I knew the drone attack cooldown wore off - anyone can spam right click.

Again, it was 8 lings + 6 drones vs 16 drones, and I don’t lose a single drone, using literally the easiest micro in the world.

Infinite Ling on Steppes of War


Double Spine 7 Pool No Overlord on Steppes of War
The Power of Belial’s BossWalk

In this game I made micro errors by not adding morphing eggs to my group/hotkey, which is a basic mistake - to totally ignore less than perfect micro in general in this game. Even with it being on Steppes, less than perfect micro, and the glaring micro blunders, I came out 2 drones, 6 lings, and 2 overlords ahead. This replay should be proof enough of the concept, and bronzies can understand the mistake I made in not having a complete hotkey group and idling units, and Steppes. Regardless of mistakes, I came out way ahead.

This is also an example of my BossWalk - you can see I look to my natural’s mineral field to deal with his spines, although in hindsight just using my main’s mineral field and pro-active drone positioning would’ve been better. It does show the concept

Bad_Habit’s 7 Pool Drone all-in Single Spine on Steppes of War


Belial’s Soulcrusher 7 Pool Drones with Single Spine and 2 drones mining on Steppes


The Stalemate Situation against the Bad Habit 7 Pool Drone All-in on Xel'Naga Caverns
Ft. Special Musical Guest Star: Bad Habit

Bad Habit completely out-played me, and I stupidly wasn't paying attention to my lings and ran them right into his army after I was able to escape from his egg surround. I should have kept them inside my base and juked around, but instead I made the huge blunder of trying to rejoin forces too desperately. He kills my hatch so he cannot force a stalemate for himself, but since I didn't get a single ling out and even lost 2 drones because I stupidly attacked his spine at the start, I force the stalemate instead of lose.

Bad_Habit insists he lost because of something to do with his spine, but fact of the matter is that I forced the stalemate by having my army by my spine. Once he ran up the ramp, he lost the game because he took too much damage, and also allowed my drones to run past his army to focus his spine. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing at the moment, so afterwards I looked into how stalemates occur and what to do in such situations, and wrote The Stalemate section.

It comes down to me stupidly losing way more than 2 of my lings, and I only needed to get 2 lings out, and him refusing to stalemate by killing my hatch

I did win though ^^