Drone Rushes: Counter for each race

Question

As a relatively new SC player, specifically SC2, the single most annoying thing I have found in my games is when a player attempts an all-in drone rush (any all-in 6-8 drone/probe/scv rush) "Cheese" strategy within the first minute of the game.

Since the opponents are usually doing this technique before I even get a scout out of my base, scouting this maybe isn't as practical as scouting for every other build order. How should each race counter such a strategy? If the opponent does catch you off guard, is really good micro the only way to save yourself?

Answer 1

Let's do some math here:

• Average Rush Distance: 50 seconds
• Drone Build Time: 17 Seconds
• Minerals gathered per second: 1*Drones
• Starting Drones: 6 (+50 Min)

So if he rushing you with his initial 6 this means you should have enough to build at least 2 more drones by the time he arrives. This would leave you with 8 drones to his 6. If he waits for his 7th, then you should be looking at 9-10 Drones vs his 7.

The key point here is: You should always have more Drones!

Now in 2v2 I can see how this would be an issue... if your ally doesn't help you, but in 1v1 you should always have a leg up on anyone Drone rushing.

Now many where you're falling down is Drone Micro. The key to good Drone micro is two things

1. Try to surround his Drones
2. If you right-click on Minerals (harvest), your Drones gain unit walking

If you're ever in a situation where he has a surround and you don't, just click minerals. This will remove his surround. Don't let your Drones get caught behind each other as you want to get a good surround. Finally, if he's dancing in and out, just mine more minerals and build more Drones. He's not harvesting and you are, and that means you can gain an even larger advantage.

Answer 2

Normally when this happens they do not keep building drones, so depending on how far apart you are, you should have 1 or 2 more drones. You should use micro to keep your units alive while attacking theirs as you should have more then them, and with the possibility of continuing to make more.

Use the drone/scv/prove mining trick to keep your units alive. If you click on a patch of minerals your unit will walk through other units, so you can walk the weak ones to the back etc...

If you have SCVs they can repair each other, or have 1 repairing while the rest fight.

Answer 3

See my answer @ Best strategy against Worker Rush cheese in 2v2 and other matchups

In response to the specific answers in this duplicate question though...

All workers move the same speed, and none are ranged. This gives you the option of just running around, not letting the enemy do much harm, while your ally builds an army as quickly as possible with his untouched base. At that point it's basically a 1v0 game until your opponents can resurrect their economy. Personally I think that worker micro is too risky in this situation for the following reasons:

2. Running is easier than attacking. When you attack with workers, no matter how good you are, sometimes it just ends up in the opponents' favor if they micro better than you or if you find yourself in a bad position or panic.
3. You will have a slight advantage because of worker count, but you can increase your advantage the longer you delay their attack. They will have no reinforcements coming. If you attack right away they will have 0 workers to your 2. If you wait a while, they will have 0 workers to your 2 workers and 4 marines.

On the devils' advocate side though, there are probably ways of combining this attack with a 6-pool or proxy rax which could make things much trickier to defend against.