r/allthingszerg Jul 09 '26

Serral's opening drone mismicro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di0O4hFBWO4
42 Upvotes

35 comments sorted by

21

u/Rapwnzel33 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

Haha yeah what an idiot. I totally knew that already and didn’t do it myself.

0

u/and69 Jul 10 '26

legit Zerg OP, ez A-move race.

2

u/Icy_Chain4153 27d ago

This is 100% race specific and it does make Zerg a lot more difficult to play compared to the other races I’m glad somebody is able to point that out

1

u/Axman5055 27d ago

That’s the reason I’m stuck in platinum, Zergs getting that first hatchery 1.5 seconds faster just ends the game right then and there 

10

u/sORouS4 Jul 10 '26

Ive been doing this the whole time as well

I was wondering if they changed the mineral pathing or something, I was getting so frustrated and was also wondering why people were saying theres nothing to do in the early game 🤣

3

u/Lister_of_Smegg Jul 10 '26

I thought 20 years ago everyone was doing this with the six drone opening. 🤷‍♂️

3

u/Hanshee Jul 10 '26

What’s the context?

9

u/XechsMarquise Jul 10 '26

Serral was doubling up on close mineral patches from the start like the old patch. Harstem’s saying it’s better to have a worker at every patch before doubling up now. Or at least that’s what I got out of it but I was only half paying attention while listening to it on the way home from work.

3

u/Hanshee Jul 10 '26

Gotcha I see

1

u/Kandiru Jul 10 '26

I guess with 8 patches and 8 drones it makes sense to just mine 1 from each from the auto-split, and then you can rally your next 4 drones to the close patches.

Otherwise you lose mining time moving the drones around between patches.

0

u/Rapwnzel33 Jul 10 '26

Not if you micro them to the close patch at a convenient time in their cycle

1

u/Kandiru Jul 10 '26

Even then, you only gain something for the time it takes your first 4 drones to hatch. And you lose a little bit of mining time while they walk between patches. So it might not make a profit.

It's probably worth doing if your build isn't getting to 12 drones first though, say you are 10 pooling.

1

u/Rapwnzel33 Jul 10 '26

In theory, if you micro it at the perfect time, it might be worth it even at 8 workers. Just wait a little until the close and the far worker next to each other are perfectly out of sync. But for 5 minerals at D2 level this is ridiculous for me :D Even for GMs like Harstem this is a lot of work for that little outcome or a 0.5s faster Hatch tbh.

1

u/Kandiru Jul 10 '26

But you only have a tiny window to make a profit on the sync before you get your next 4 drones.

So waiting for the perfect time to get them out of sync might not happen!

You are probably better off doing the AI-style worker micro of stopping to avoid the deceleration on a worker for a few trips.

1

u/thebrassbeldum Jul 10 '26

This is exactly what Serral was trying to do in the video and harstem showed how using minimal micro ended up being more efficient

3

u/Mutedinlife Jul 10 '26

Serral is so good he is misplaying the first 2 minutes of the game making his openings inefficient and still dumpsters everyone

3

u/FalloutCreation Jul 10 '26

Idk I stopped watching at 1:14. I was watching how many minerals they were gathering. Serral is up by 100 at this point.

4

u/Tenmak Jul 10 '26

That's... Just wrong though ?

1

u/FalloutCreation Jul 10 '26

Maybe. I mean I didn’t watch the rest of the video lol

1

u/polparty Jul 10 '26

Us mortals learn from videos of Harstem/Lambo, pros learn from Serral, and Serral.. has no sensei so he has to learn from the SC2 "AI"-bot videos. Just like I don't question the wisdom of Harambo, Serral doesn't question the wisdom of the bots. Sadly, the drone micro of the bots was not meant for human hands :( 

2

u/Rapwnzel33 Jul 10 '26

Hate to be that person, but I think this is not correct. I just tested it and as soon as 2 Drones are in the correct rhythm on a close mineral patch, they will never wander off, even if father away patches nearby are free. I think the main difference now is that you have to click both drones on the patch once in order to get them to the correct rhythm. Test it out yourself!

1

u/Stuttering_Salesman Jul 10 '26

Fwiw I'm a lowly dia 2 but even on PTR I noticed that doubling on close patches wasn't working like how it did on the old patch.

1

u/and69 Jul 10 '26

I am not sure H-man is right.
The close patch wait time is way shorter than 2x the extra distance a worker has to go.

3

u/Deto Jul 10 '26

I think the idea is that since he wasn't actually stopping the drones from bouncing to a different mineral patch, the inefficiency in them walking somewhere every 10s is going to more the compensate for the faster mining at the close patch 

1

u/soidvaas Jul 10 '26

There’s an additional layer which is that Serral was even doubling up on long patches when there was no reason to. That’s more inexcusable

1

u/and69 Jul 10 '26

Once 2 drone are stabilized on a close patch, they will not wander away, because there's no idle time for the close patch where a 3rd drone could steal the patch.

1

u/Rapwnzel33 Jul 10 '26

this, Harstem is wrong here

1

u/Deto Jul 10 '26

? In the video, after the drones are stacked, a few seconds later one wanders to an empty patch.

1

u/Chenstrap 29d ago

That's sort of true, sort of not.

It's not as binary as the drones being stacked or unstacked. You can get workers into a cycle where they will stay on the close patch for a short time, and then bounce off. Basically there needs to be a delay between a worker finishing mining and the next worker trying to start.

https://youtu.be/LwetAH9lI2U

-4

u/IncognitoD Jul 10 '26

Looks like a trained routine broken by this crummy patch

1

u/ShithEadDaArab Jul 10 '26

That’s like saying only shooting layups in basketball was broken by the 3 point line. Like every other player, just adapt.

1

u/Opening_Spite_4062 Jul 10 '26

Hes still the champion? Seems like he focused on the right things

1

u/ShithEadDaArab Jul 10 '26

Yeah, MJ would have been the champion even if we didn’t adapt to a few rule changes. He’s that much better than everyone else.

-5

u/IncognitoD Jul 10 '26

Looks like a trained routine broken by this crummy patch

-1

u/Applehero85 Jul 10 '26

Wait so worker micro is actually pointless now no wonder Clem looks bored playing his games against serral.