13 Pool Muta (vs. Terran)
From Liquipedia StarCraft Brood War Wiki
13 Pool MutaStrategy Information
Creator(s):
[[YellOw[ArnC]|YellOw[ArnC]]]
Matchups:
ZvT
Type:
Opening
Overview
[edit]13 Pool Muta is the fastest possible six Mutalisk rush. The build was introduced by YellOw[ArnC] in Bacchus OSL and it's purpose is to provide a hard counter to the growing trend of greedy terran builds that involved expanding behind one or a few Vultures while teching at the same time. It's an all in build that relies heavily on the first six Mutalisks doing an incredible amount of damage or outright killing the Terran. 13 Pool Muta is a very low economy build order and early aggression is therefore very powerful against it. If performed correctly this Mutalisk rush will hit the terran base at about 5:50 into the game. A time when terran has not yet gotten his defenses up if he went for a Factory into expansion build. That is about 20 seconds faster than the normal 2 Hatch Muta (vs. Terran).
Build Order
[edit]- 9 - Overlord
- 13 - Spawning Pool
- 12 - Extractor
- 13 - Hatchery (at Natural)
@100% Spawning Pool - Lair (before Zerglings)
- 13 - Two Zerglings
- 14 - Two more Zerglings (for a total of 4)
- 15 - Drone
- 16 - Overlord
- 17-19 - Creep Colony (morph to a Sunken Colony)
- 20 - Stop Drone production
- 20 - Two Overlords
@75% Spire - Second Extractor
@100% Spire - Six Mutalisks (keep making Mutalisks and Overlords)
Build Order Clarification
[edit]13 - Spawning Pool / 12 - Extractor
[edit]Rally the 12th drone to the spot you place your Spawning Pool at. Right before it spawns you take a Drone from your mineral line and send it to the Vespene Geyser. As your 12th Drone spawns you make another Drone and at the same time make the Spawning Pool and the Extractor. This is the most crucial step to the build. If you make your pool too early then you won't have minerals for Lair and if you make it too late the Lair will be delayed unessecarily. Remember that this build is designed to kill the Terran before his defenses are up so every second you can gain really counts.
15 Drone
[edit]This Drone is crucial in allowing you to get six Mutalisks as the Spire finishes instead of four or five.
17-19 Creep Colony
[edit]Whatever you feel comfortable with to stop the first Vulture. Usually this depends on map layout.
20 Stop Drone production / Two Overlords
[edit]It's very important that you do this. You could make another Drone and one less Overlord and you would still be able to make six Mutalisks right when Spire finishes but it would make your following Mutalisks a lot later and that defeats the purpose of this build.
Note that you do not Drone scout with this build and thus you need to use your Overlord and Zerglings to scout for any proxy shenanigans.
Build order Adaptation
[edit]This build is not very easy to adapt. If you sway from the instructions here the Mutalisk rush will be delayed or weakened. But sometimes it's worth it. If your opponent shows signs of early aggression you might be forced to add some more Zerglings or place your spire later. This will delay the Mutalisks but can be worth it if the Terran is getting his own defenses up later.
Going along with the Mutalisk rush is not good if he is going for 1 Rax FE since he will have enough Marines to fend you off and his Engineering Bay will most likely be done in time for a good Turret defense. If you see that he is doing a 1 Rax FE type build then it can be wise to pop down a Hydralisk Den when your Lair is 50% completed and go for a fast Lurker rush into his natural or Lurker drop him on multiple fronts. Alternatively you can delay your Spire and Drone up a bit so that the timing becomes more like the normal 2 Hatch Muta build.
Transition
[edit]Transitions out of this build are really hard. Usually when your Mutalisks spawn you will want to go for the kill right away. Either by a lot of harassment or by just bum rushing his production facilities and taking out all his units. To transition out of this build you need to do tremendous damage to his economy as well as practically killing all of his units. If you get to a point where you have decent Drone saturation in your natural and you've placed a third base then you can transition into either lurkers or Hive rush for Guardians. The normal followup to the initial Mutalisks is to not transition out of the Mutalisk harass but to keep making them and keep upgrading them.
Countered By
[edit]Hard Counters
[edit]- 2 Rax FE
- Most variations of Terran One Base Play
Soft Counters
[edit]Counter To
[edit]Hard Counters
[edit]- Fantasy Build
- Iloveoov Fake Mech
- 1 Vulture expand into 2 Factory Goliaths
- 1 Vulture expand into Biomech (Goliaths / M&M)
Soft Counters
[edit]- None
Notable Maps
[edit]Strong
[edit]- Maps with a short aerial route to opponent's base like Heartbreak Ridge, Outsider and Medusa.
Weak
[edit]- Maps where Bionic builds and 1 base builds are popular like Python, Tau Cross and Gods Garden. Also weak on maps where Speed Vultures are hard to stop without three Hatcheries, like Destination.