StarCraft 2 - Season 7 is live. Someday I'll ladder, honest

[Casio]

You know i've tried my share of scouting but sometimes I'm not sure what i'm looking at.

One thing that's worth doing when scouting is working out what they can't have. For example,

If you do a standard 6:30 scan on a Terran and they have seige tanks out already, then chances are they're not going to have any cloked banshees for a little while at least. If they have a lot of marines, but have both gases, then you can think where the gas might have been spent (Banshees? Cant see factory...Proxy Thor?). I work it out on gas based units. A zerg with early speedlings and banes most likely will not have roaches. (And conversely, a zerg with early roaches will most likely not have banes). A Protoss with 7 minute DTs won't likely have a whole lot of anything else gas based.

They're not stead fast rules, but will stop you from losing to things early on if you can identify what they can and can't have.

 

[CMvan46]

One thing that's worth doing when scouting is working out what they can't have.

I don't know why but when I think of it this way that helps a lot more. Scouting last night was a lot better.

 

[granturismite]

Mmm...that awkward moment when you send in a warp prism, drop 4 zealots into the mineral line, and warp in none, because you are supply blocked.

 

[CMvan46]

Mmm...that awkward moment when you send in a warp prism, drop 4 zealots into the mineral line, and warp in none, because you are supply blocked.

Last night I accidentally set my rally point for my starport farther ahead than my army I was trying to rally too. I flew 4 medivacs straight into an army of stalkers before I realized.

 

[Casio]

Last night I accidentally set my rally point for my starport farther ahead than my army I was trying to rally too. I flew 4 medivacs straight into an army of stalkers before I realized.

You know you can rally units directly to a unit? Not really good to do it in battle, but fine if you're just sitting at home or scouting around the map. Though in practice it's always worth trying to constantly rally behind where your main army is at.

 

[CMvan46]

You know you can rally units directly to a unit? Not really good to do it in battle, but fine if you're just sitting at home or scouting around the map. Though in practice it's always worth trying to constantly rally behind where your main army is at.

Yeah that's what I'd done but when my marines were killed off I forgot to rally my starport back at my base.

 

[granturismite]

Been playing some 2v2 games recently, as random, and got placed into Diamond...I am nowhere near that level. I know 2v2 is a different animal than 1v1, but I know I don't have the skill to keep up with the other 3 players on the map. Problem is, my placement matches were against bronze, silver and gold, which I beat (not without problems).

My main issue...I won too much and am getting my butt handed to me...first world problems much?

 

[Azuremen]

A lot of silver 1v1 players can make Diamond in 2v2. It is a very, very different animal.

 

[Casio]

A lot of silver 1v1 players can make Diamond in 2v2. It is a very, very different animal.

Case in point. My 2v2 mate is Silver 1v1 and we're #1 Plat on SEA (Which would most likely be Diamond NA).

There are also a lot of teams who aren't that great players but have well refined cheesy strats. (Such as 6-Pool+Pylon to stop the wall off), Cannon rush/Early Pool with overlord granting vision, Cannon Rush with Floating Rax Vision, Marine + Mass SCV all in, Mineral Sharing. Once you defend that though their Silver level skills show through.

Arranged teams are matched against random teams. An arranged team will always have a huge advantage over a random team.

 

[Blackbird.]

Type "Zerg Rush" in google.

 

[CMvan46]

Type "Zerg Rush" in google.

Saw that the other day when I signed into Starcraft. I told my girlfriend to do it (she knows nothing about Starcraft) and she panicked.

 

[Casio]

Now I know some of you guys like 2v2, and I know there is a lot of Terran players in here. So I thought I'd post this replay.
(This is against Masters level 2v2 players) for some 2v2 love.

It's a pretty basic strategy. Basically it's a 1/1/1 from the Terran combined with One base Colossi from the Protoss, attacking around the 10 minute mark. Works well against all T and P combinations, and semi decent against PZ (Best against PP).

If you don't outright kill them on the first push. You can take an expand and proceed into a regular game. And hopefully proceed to crush them on the next push. I guess it's vulnerable to super early game all-ins, but you should be able to spot it and bunker up.

 

[Azuremen]

If you don't kill them on the first push, you're horrible and deserve to lose the game

 

[Casio]

If you don't kill them on the first push, you're horrible and deserve to lose the game

It's true. Iam a noob.

 

[CMvan46]

Well I've found two builds I'm fairly comfortable with now.

1st is for big maps with long distances between bases. I was watching a pro stream the other day and he consistently did 1 production expand builds at around 4 minutes and so I've started doing that with a bunker or two for the marines I've got and then I go into a 3 barracks, 1 factory, 2 starport build from there.

2nd for smaller maps is my Banshee "rush" where I get some marines again and then 2 cloaked banshees as soon as possible and go harass the other base and army. Then while that's going on I expand and get siege tanks with bunkers to defend the expansion.

I won 9 in a row with those two builds and then lost a bunch for stupid mistakes... and now won 4 of last 5 again. I just can't get out of the bronze league. I'll get into the top 8 and then next time I log on people have passed me...

 

[Casio]

So I had a day off today with nothing to do so I decided I would have a whole day of laddering, horray!

Firstly, in the whole day I played against 1 other Terran. I didn't mind too much as TvT bores the **** out of me, but was interesting. I then when about 8-0 against Protoss (FEAR ME) and 2-6 against Zerg. Really starting to struggle against Zerg, just feel I have to do so much more, and they just make a **** ton of lings/banes and win (Maybe with a few infestors thrown in). Even games where I successfully 12/14 bunker rush a 15 hatch, I don't feel I'm ever as much up ahead I should be.

The two games I won I 11/11 proxy rax'd SCV allin'd. But I don't want to keep doing that as it's not exactly skilful...

 

[CMvan46]

Yeah I have a ton of trouble against Zerg. I beat other Terran players nearly every time now... except my hour long game last night. And Protoss I win 2 of 3 or so against but zerg I think I've won once in the last long time and that was done by constantly dropping on him andi when he made mutalisks I had a ton of vikings waiting and some siege tanks by that point so I just rolled over him but that hasn't worked for me since and my ladder rank hurts because of it.

I've been tying a new bio heavy strategy lately that's been working quite well. It's a one rax expand, unless scouting tells me that a bad idea, and then going to 3 rax with one tech lab and a reactor. Then when upgrades start to finish I move out and then work my way to medivacs when my expansion is done and then move out with a very large army at that point if the first one didn't win it.

I'm really trying to focus on my macro right now as I know anybody in bronze doesn't have great macro so of course I need that to improve. I need to keep remembering to not have idle buildings.

Casio where are you on the ladder?

 

[Casio]

I'm gold on SEA and plat on NA.

I usually either 1 rax Fe or reactor helion expand , into either marine tank or helion tank and always manage to hold them on two base for a while, but then they put up 5 spines make a lot of lings and sit in base until they reach a critical level and wreak my ****.

Most TvZ I play are quite long so they never kill me outright, but I'm feeling I need to do more damage at the start, but not 100% how to do so.

 

[CMvan46]

Played another 6 games on the ladder just now and won 4. I more or less strictly stuck to focusing on macro. I made sure I always had a unit in production and tried to stay clear of queing up units. I played 2 silver guys and beat them both in under 15 minutes. I lost to a proxy zealot rush and a guy who was platinum division in everything except 1v1 and was in placement matches... I lost in 10 minutes.

 

[Submerged]

Were you expecting the game to be so short, CMvan?

 

[CMvan46]

Sorry what do you mean by that?

And my latest strategy of focus a ton of just constantly making units and not getting supply blocked is working well. I moved from 15th to 4th on the bronze ladder and handily beat a couple more silver players...one was ranked 10th and was not very good.

Anyway I've just been going 3 rax with upgrades and then after my expansion add siege tanks and medivacs if I haven't won by that point. Most people get so overwhelmed with the marines/marrauders that it ends pretty quickly and I wouldn't say I'm rushing.

 

[Submerged]

I mean, playing against the Plat dude, were you expecting to be quite short or expecting it to be a longer game?

 

[Azuremen]

I really don't get why players focus on "I lasted this long against an XYZ" or "I won in this time"

Really, the time doesn't matter because of the builds involved. Especially at lower levels, where I've seen bronze players spend 40 minutes doing damn near nothing besides floating resources and double retreating.

Game times are decided by the builds involved usually. A rush build from either player will generally mean the game ends sooner, because if it works it works and if it fails the other player is quite far behind it makes finishing the game fairly straight forward.

 

[CMvan46]

I mean, playing against the Plat dude, were you expecting to be quite short or expecting it to be a longer game?

I had no idea he was that good until I looked after because he had banshees way faster than I can make them.

I only said the 10 minute comment because I know I can make banshees if I rush for them in 7 minutes or so. He had them in my base by then with a fairly large bio army. I have no idea how he got everything that quickly but I guess I should watch the replay.

 

[Casio]

You don't really need cloak for banshee openings vs terran as banshees out range marines anyway.

 

[CMvan46]

Just played my first 2v2 with Granturismite. It was good fun although I'm sure frustrating for him.

Gran I know you had to leave but did you notice we won literally 2 seconds later? They only had 3 DTs left and their army value graphs were right at 0 at the end. Anyway thanks for the game.

#3 on the bronze ladder. I'm playing lots of silver and gold level guys now so I'm hoping a promotion is coming soon.

 

[granturismite]

sorry bout that...kinda had to do something that seems rather unimportant right now, but it had to be done.

but that is good news that we won. I was expecting because of my incorrect placing in diamond, that we would be smashed, especially as I randomed zerg, my worst race. but we fought well, and sorry if it sounded like I was bossing you around or anything. anyway, thanks for a fun match!

 

[CMvan46]

Oh not a problem at all. Life comes before gaming. You definitely weren't bussing me around. You only really asked for scans and some gas.

I quite liked 2v2 it's very very different from 1v1 as everybody was saying. It's also pretty cool seeing 2 completely different armies put together.

 

[Blackbird.]

So me and my 2v2 partner just won three in a row. All good games but this last one was a nailbiter (for me). I'd like some advice on what I can do better. I feel like it should have gone a bit more smoothly.

Here's the replay.

I knew the baneling bust was coming but I failed to stop that, plus I failed at kiting them. After watching the replay I didn't even know Zerg had the gold base so early.

 

[Casio]

So me and my 2v2 partner just won three in a row. All good games but this last one was a nailbiter (for me). I'd like some advice on what I can do better. I feel like it should have gone a bit more smoothly.

Here's the replay.

I knew the baneling bust was coming but I failed to stop that, plus I failed at kiting them. After watching the replay I didn't even know Zerg had the gold base so early.

Tell your Protoss buddy to get Colossi Range . (Especially when he's floating enough minerals all game to get it)

Really you shouldn't have got close to winning after that bust, but in the end you would have won on the first counter with extended lance and some decent control.

I also think opening with 2 Cannons at the front is over safe. That's an extra 3 Zealots which would have helped a lot more.

You were also supply blocked for aggeeeessss on 35 food.