6 Pool Opening- Zerg vs Protoss Strategy on Tel' Darim Altar

6 Pool openings of Zerg is one of the most often used build order cheese at the Starcraft 2 online game lower ladders such as Bronze and Silver League. Players in these leagues are not so good compared to their higher league brothers and are less experienced in the Starcraft 2 game itself. With lesser understandings and weak macro and micro capabilities, these players tend to resort to all in strategies such as 6 pooling on every map.6 Pool is the most proclaimed form of cheese in Starcraft 2. It either fails or wins you the game against the unsuspecting opponent. At times, even when they have scouted your cheese, failing to react in time can often can cost them the game as well.

FFE Is The Most Used Protoss Build on Tel Darim Altar
Lets take a look at Tel' Darim Altar. The most common Protoss build on this map is a Forge Fast Expand or FFE, with Pylon, Forge, Nexus, Gateway and Core walling the front of the natural. This is the most commonly used Protoss build order due to the ease of defending the natural and the main base together. Thus, nearly all high level SC2 PvZ on Tel'Darim Altar involves the Protoss player getting their Nexus expansion very early in the game, and even earlier than the Zerg player.

Zerg player do not generally go for a 15 Hatchery on this map due to the ability of Protoss to just Cannon rush the Zerg player with 3 Pylons to block the choke between the natural and the main. Thus, Zergs are often forced to get an earlier Spawning Pool, thus, leading to a slower natural expansion compared to the Protoss. To counter this, Zerg mostly grabs their second expansion very early in the game. The reason behind this, is when Protoss are going for a FFE, they lacks the ability to create any form of pressure to the Zerg player. Thus, Zerg can safely Drone up and expand earlier than normal.

Lets come back to the 6 Spawning Pool opening on this map. 6 Pool in Zerg vs Protoss on Tel' darim Altar is not an all in strategy. 6 Pool is used to deny the Protoss early expand build, which is the most commonly used build order here. Protoss players are forced to slow down their expansion and cutting Probes to create a full wall in at the front of their natural to react to 6 Pool. Everyone should take note of this. Due to the high probability of Protoss going for a FFE, 6 Pool is a very very strong build on this map. As a Protoss player myself, an unscouted 6 Pool due to the Zerg being the last spawning location on the map has cost me countless games. 6 Pool basically catches your opponent off guard and or failing to react and walling the front of the natural on time. It is very common for Protoss players to just lose to a 6 Pool rush Strategy.


Lets take a look at the build order here.

• Send Overlord to any spawn location
• 6 Spawning Pool
• Drone
• Drone
• When Pool is 70% done, send a Drone to Scout
• Pool Done- 6 Zerglings
• Extractor Trick to get 2 more Zerglings creating a total of 8 Zerglings and send them to the Protoss base
• Continue to get an Overlord, Drone, Queen and natural up

Generally, you will be having 8 Zerglings heading towards the Protoss base. If the Protoss has not fully wall, go ahead and run the Zerglings in to deal massive damage to the mineral line. Do take note, you do not want your Zerglings to get surrounded by the Probes using the Mineral Sliding Trick, where you can select all your workers to bypass the Zerglings by clicking at the mineral and easily surround the Lings.

This build can often times end the game at this point. If your opponent is being caught off guard, you can proceed to mass up more lings to end the game. If he has reacted in time by walling his base and getting a Cannon down, you have to start making Drones and getting your expansion to power up your macro. Try to hit any buildings that are not in range of the Cannon.

Thus, 6 Pool is a very strong build for Zerg vs Protoss matchup on Tel'Darim Altar. This is probably a metagame build, which often refers to if the metagame currently consists of 95% of Protoss players going for a FFE on Tel Darim Altar, you use a build to specifically counter it. Do remember, this is not an all in build, the main purpose is to slow down the Protoss player's expansion. Good luck in 6 Pooling your way on Tel Darim Altar.