Queens

I got a link to a VOD where Illusion does a spine crawler/Queen-rush and I just had to try myself. Basically you never build gas and not many drones either. When you have your first queen and a bunch of Zerglings out, you take three drones and go for the Protoss entrance.

Once you get there you plant a hatchery, cancels it and place a creep tumor where its creep was. Then adds spine crawlers and reinforces with Queens and more Zerglings.

With the new Queen speed and range it is remarkably efficient and I quickly got three wins with this cheese. Most players made comments like “Wow, that is a cute strategy” or similar. That is rare when you do a cheese.

In my fifth game I met someone who knew how to counter this. Apparently it is possible to stop, although not necessarily extremely easy.

Mutas in ZvZ

I’m playing an extraordinarily amount of ZvZ. It seems like slightly less that one out of two games are ZvZ. Last season I did badly in this matchup, but due to the high number of games I think I slowly got better at it. This season it is my best matchup.

My standard build is a safe early expand followed up by defensive banelings. Then I drone and tech towards mutas while slowly adding spine crawlers for defense.

Its important to attack with the mutas as soon as the first batch is out and to be prepared for the inevitable roach/ling counter. If you survive the counter, the game is won.

 

What I don’t like about this is that it feels slightly cheesy. You basically depend on doing knock-out damage with your mutas. Kinda like a lurker drop in Brood War. However, if you do just marginal damage or your opponent has infestors with fungal out, you can still win by playing the game out carefully and transitioning to roaches supported by your mutas.

I think this style has its limits, but since I suck at this game I have until now not encountered many players who can stop this instantly.

SQ Insight

I’ve just read the interesting article about SQ ratings on teamliquid and simply had to see if there was anything in this number that I could learn from. In order to do that I calculated the SQ ratings based on the last 8 games that I, Bartokaj and Sethos have played in 1v1. Bartokaj and Sethos being two of my friends.

I’m gold looking to advance to platinum, Sethos is a solid Diamond player and Bartokaj is in Silver. According to the article, there is a an expectation that the difference in SQ rating are reflected more or less in league. Bronze: 45’ish, Silver: 45-50, Gold: 50-55, Platinum: 55-60, Diamond: 60-70, Master: 70-80 and Grand Master: 80 and above.

	Me	Bartokaj	Sethos
1	66	55	72
2	60	47	75
3	55	62	73
4	65	48	50
5	63	43	55
6	66	58	53
7	54	77	65
8	63	60	49
Average	62	56	62

I don’t know whether the expected values are because the data for the original analysis is from the North American ladder or what. I don’t think the values I found in my own small study reflects the expected levels very well.

However, looking at my own numbers, I wonder why I have so high an unspent average as I do. Right now I play Zerg, and as a Zerg you are often limited by the number of larva and I am often not so concerned about how much money I have in the bank. Holding my money there allows me to instantly make 25 supply worth of what ever I need. Had I already spent the money, my options would be more limited.

In the early game I can see that I could work more on having enough larva available. I’ve already started working on that recently by getting my third hatchery quite early compared to a month ago.

Anyways, it is really interesting to compare your gameplay via a analysis like this and look at what you can easily do to improve this aspect of your game.

Getting Predictable

Most games goes like this:

1. Drone and scout
2. Expand
3. Tech to Lair
4. Expand
5. Get Spire
6. Tech to Hive
7. Double Expand
8. Get Greater Spire
9. Max
10. Attack

The steps are basically just interrupted by making exactly enough units to survive what ever my opponent has and maybe some harassing as well. But the predictable thing is that everything revolves around the target for a greater spire.

The two reasons this is so single-track like is the need for air defense coupled with how hard the Ultralisk blows. A 1-1-1 from a Terran requires Mutalisks or extreme luck. Anything that includes either Void Rays or Collosi requires air units too. Hydralisks are nice as a supplement, but they are fragile and slow.

Even Zerg, which for the longest time was just roach/infestor battles have turned more and more towards Muta/ling battles. Not quite the same as the two other matchups, but close enough for it to feel a little stale.

Great Balls of Fire

My gameplay versus Protoss has progressed to a completely unbearable state. For a while in gold I won approximately 80% of my ZvP games and when I got promoted to Platinum that only dropped slightly. But then I started meeting Protoss player with a seemingly unbeatable strategy: They do _nothing_!

At first I thought my problem was I was too passive and let them probe up too much so I set out to improve my harrasment. It works fine, but make no difference.

Right now most of my games goes something like this: I get 3 bases to their two. I get a nice ball of mutalisks and kill about 20 probes in one of the two bases before they get too many stalkers. Mean while I max out on 200/200 mostly roaches and save up around 5k in minerals and gas. When they move out they usually mostly have stalkers and we meet and my army dies to their limited loses and I max out again. My next wave of units dies for little more return than the first time around. So does my third max-out and then I am out of money and unable to hold back their attack anymore.

I’m a little baffled by this. I’m quite often ahead on upgrades as well and going ultras or broodlords seems to have no positive effect. The feeling I have is that I am way ahead before the first engagement, but when we meet we exchange units at the rate 120 to 30 or so.

I’ve been told I should have 5 bases and even more money. I don’t see the wisdom in that. 2 more bases (as opposed to just two more hatcheries) would either spread my drones thinner or leave less supply for army units. And even if it didn’t and just gave me more money, then I don’t see the point in being able to max out 5 times before dying compared to just 3.

I assume there is some trick I need to discover as pros are not quite this lost to the great Protoss deathball. I just wonder what the hell it is.

What is up with Infestors?

I’ve encountered a new phenomenon: Zerglings and infestors in huge amounts. At first I was a little bit surprised by this new development, but the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.

What is this supposed to accomplice? Fungal growth is nasty and all, but it still need backup from something that is able to absorb some damage. And neither zerglings nor infestors can do that.

I’ve just encountered this matchup twice in a row, and the players using this was fairly high rank platinum players. I haven’t figured the brilliance of this out yet…

Cracking the next Level of Terran vs Zerg

I’ve finally started to get platinum level opponent and that has led to a whole new range of problems. Which is good and exactly what I wanted. I consider myself a macro player and my micro is sub-par. I have been experimenting with different opening vs. Zerg. Early aggression (which I suck at), pure mech play (which is really, really hard, and a mixed build that for a long time has felt really vulnerable to baneling/lings.

But finally I seem to have discovered what everybody else probably already knew. That skipping tanks almost completely and going for a thor/hellion mix to supplement a pure marine army, is fairly efficient in this scenario.

Looking at the screenshots above from a random game of mine, its obvious that the mech portion of the army absorbs most of the damage from the banelings. I probably ought to have my thors in front though. As the hellions are better against the zerglings.

Right now it seems inevitable that I will soon be promoted to platinum myself. If my Terran play is good enough to get me further than that we will have to see.

Oh, and for the record, I am now 82-54 or 82-29 when I remove the 25 games I initially lost on purpose.

Two Protoss vs Protoss games

I’ve played two PvPs today as well as a range of other games. But those two games exemplifies some of the problems I am having. Probably problems everyone trying to improve at Starcraft I having.

In the first game I put on early pre assure, he blocked his ramp with force fields and captured some of my units and killed them. I killed some of his as well. A fairly even exchange. We then both expanded twice and the game turned into a heavy macro fest. I tried to attack his 3rd base and had significantly more collosi than him, but he had a couple of void rays. I lost that exchange by a tiny margin, but in the next major battle he had 4 or 5 void rays and my lead in collosi was completely nullifed by that. I ended up losing the game like that.

Im not so impressed with patch 1.2s upgrade of the void ray. Yeah it hit collosi harder now, but it is slow as hell and there will always be stalkers around too and they die quite fast. That is my take on it anyways.

On to game two. Early game was pretty much as before, except this time I went stargate instead my second robotics. I got out fewer collosi and a couple of void rays and was ready for the first engagement. We met and the exchange was fairly even. Hard to say who won or lost there. He was clearly pumping out collosi from more robotics facilities than me, but on the other hand my force of void rays were growing fast now. We finally met in one big battle and my void rays died fast after which his superior number of collosi wiped me out.

Wtf! And I repeat: WTF!?! What lesson regarding the relative value of a pure collosi build versus one where void rays are mixed in should I learn here? I’m baffled. Sure I may have lost du e to bad unit control or due to me just sucking in general, but I was clearly ahead in the early game and my macro was clearly better than both my opponents. How come I lost both the games then?

Knowing what to learn from a given defeat is hard. Way harder than actually playing the game. And it makes me frustrated and very much aware of my suckiness. Bah….!

Going Against the Trend

I know PvZ is considered slightly in Protoss favor at the moment. That is not what I experience. I’ve lost 9 of my last 15 games – the majority of those against Zergs. In my frustration I have probably been a little on a tilt too. Not a pretty thing.

I think that the main reason for my loses is an overall shift in the meta game. And that I feel that I am behind on the learning curve here. A couple of months back it was all about mutalisks and using the mobility of Zerg vs Protoss. That has caused me to go light on zealots which now has become a problem when mass zerglings into roaches seems to be the new standard opening.

I suck at this game and often feel that I mis-click more than I should. Or mis-judge the situation when in hindsight it was obvious what I should have done. That becomes frustrating after 6-7 loses in a row. And everything just builds on top of that.

Now I am simply dreading playing versus Zerg and at the same time I find Protoss vs Protoss a really complicated and scary matchup. I’m considering a race-switch, but I also know it is a huge change and that there is a lot I would have to re-learn. I wish I didn’t suck so much at this.

Dealing with Cheese

There are a lot of annoying cheeses around in Starcraft. The first one as well as the sequel. As a player you have to deal with cheesy plays all the time. On option would be to be angry about it a rage-quit the game all together. Another option is to overcome that particular challenge.

Void Rays are a nuisance on the lower levels. Hell, I suck in Diamond and even I have problems when I am surprised by a couple of these nasty units!
One way of dealing with this threat is to ignore that cheeses are there and just try to figure out to beat them on your own or with the help of friends who have already figured it out.

I chose a different option: During the beta and a good part of the time right after release, I did all the cheeses I could. I Void Ray rushed as Protoss, Banshee rushed as Terran and 6-pooled as Zerg. I got some wins on this, especially in the beginning, but quite fast I encountered people who took it upon themselves to show me that my cheesy plays – and me by extension – sucked.

Having my nice Void Ray rush defeated countless times is not a nice feeling. On the other hand I now had the replays so I could learn from my opponents what I should do when I encounter a cheese myself. Problem (partially) solved.

How to Improve at Starcraft

I’ve been looking a replays from the Silver league a lot these last two days and I am really amazed at what I saw. I actually think the level of play in the lower leagues have become quite high compared to all the junk you read about on forums and the like.

I was looking around for a particularly obnoxious and condescending post on teamliquid.net, but was not able to find the one I had in mind. Here is another one though, that tries to outline the difference between players in the different leagues.

I’m not so sure. My impression on the Silver league games I’ve seen so far is, that people are honestly trying to play the game right. They apply sound reasoning and do not rely on cheesy 1-base strategies too much. They actually do that far less compared to what I see in Diamond and I think it is because they don’t realize how powerful a punch they could deliver to their opponent when he is weak.

Many games in Silver are played partially blind. As a Terran you should really consider sacrificing one MULE in three in order to scan your opponents base. It would free you from preparing defenses against Void Rays that never comes and so on.

You can read countless of postings on how you should make more workers. That is sound advice, but often not really the problem it is made up to be. What is the purpose of making more workers, when the fundamental problem is that money is not being spend? There seem to be a tacit understanding that your economy grows linearly and to some extend it does. That means that when you are on one base you should gradually add on production facilities, but when you expand you should know, that 2 minutes from now your economy is going to boom.

I’ve tried to convince people that when they expand they should also add on at least 3 to 4 new production facilities. That is something that will help out most silver-players.

What is up with Terrans?

Lately I’ve been experiencing something very weird in Protoss vs Terran. Pushing out with marines, marauders and a lot of SCVs seems to have become really popular.

It doesn’t even feel that threatening. You just have to survive that one attack and then you’ve basically won.

Once you’ve experienced this once or twice, handling it seems very easy. Attacking up the ramp is a bad idea even with SCVs. I wonder why they even try.

Terran Mirror Troubles

I has been playing a few Custom Games after I realized that you could smurf there and be matched up against people without a clue. It’s a good place to practice my Terran gameplay which by far is my weakest.

So today I met SouL in a Terran mirror match on Xel’Naga Caverns (download replay).

I tried a ghost rush which he stopped cold and then I was in trouble as he was containing me a pushing in with tanks. I thought that I had lost the game for sure, but tried to play on and it turned out to be a really exiting and long game.

For a long time I was under pressure and forgot to build SCVs, and yet I slowly clawed my way back into the game. One point I found particularly exiting was when I expanded before I had cleared out his containment and had to attack while building my command center under fire.

Eventually the game turned into covering the entire map and with two maxed out Terran armies.

What I still wonder is whether his tech switch to thors was cost effective versus my tanks or if they again were countered by my marauders? At least I think I conclude that in viking vs. viking battles you cannot run away and the guy with the lowest number will always lose.

After the game was over I looked up my opponent and realized that he like me, played Protoss on the ladder and that our score there was about the same.

Lessons Learned

I have serious problems in Protoss vs Protoss and what is worse: I don’t really like the matchup. It seems so fragile. One little mistake and it is all over. Okay, most other matchups can seem exactly like that too, but the mirror matchups are more so than others I think. So I set out to become better at the matchup. In Brood War on iccup I would simply chose to play only PvP on the ladder, but that is – for good and for worse – not possible with Starcraft II.

I played a long series of games with AiurAdun yesterday. Just to discover exactly what was possible and what was not in PvP. Mainly centered around proxy gate rushed as they are still amazingly common.

So normally I’d go gateway on 12 supply and scout then. If I see nothing in his base, I will assume that he is proxy rushing with two gates and throw down another gateway of my own and pump zealots. Since I am not the one rushing I would assume that I can do this, be ahead in probes and win. On small maps, it is a bit more complicated than that.

So lessons learned (assuming a map like Steppes of War):

1. You have to scout at nine supply. Just when you put down your pylon. If you see his proxy at your natural, then you are lucky. If not then you will get to his base at exactly 12 supply or right after you’ve put down your first gate.
2. If he is proxying you, the only safe thing to do is to put down your second gateway on 12 supply too. You do not have time for your 13th probe before doing this.
3. After having put down the second gateway you can afford to build two more probes, before you switch into all out zealot production. I assume he can do the same?
4. Chrono Boost is only for zealots (after having spend the initial boost on 10 supply of course). This is a no brainer.
5. You can use your probes to defend, while he cannot. This means that you should be able to defeat his attack. The downside is that while you have zealots left and he does not, you have have lost a couple of probes.
6. It is hard to tech to stalkers while skirmishing with a ton of zealots, but as the defender you should be able to get them out first. Just 3 stalkers completely turns the tide of the battle.
7. A failed proxy rush is 95% guaranteed to be a lost game.

We also confirmed a couple of intuitive understandings I had of this matchup. For instance, if you both go gateway at 12 in your own base and you go gas at 14 and then realized that he cut probes to get his second gateway at home at 12 too, then all is not lost. You simply have to put down your own second gateway as soon as possible and pump zealots. Then you’ll be just fine.

I think this structured investigation of a matchup is extremely rewarding and we need to do more of it. And then I’ll (not) dominate the ladder …. muhahahaha!

Why do you scout?

Inspired by Babytoss’s posting frenzy I have wanted to write about why you scout. The reason why this question comes up is due to the discussion on whether the liquipedia is right when it suggests that 13 supply is the correct timing to start the cybernetics core or whether 14 supply is more optimal? The answer basically boils down to when you scout.

(Note that this posting assumes maps like Neo Medusa or Longinus).

If you scout at 8 supply (right after your first pylon), then you can’t afford the cybernetics core before 14 supply, but if you delay the scout to after you start the core, then you can afford it at 13 already.

So what are the pros and cons of scouting early?

If your opening is risky and have to adapt to whatever your opponent does, then you should scout early. If not, then your early game economy and the speed of your build is increased a lot, the more you delay.

The risk of the 10/15 gate opening against Terrans is mainly if they decide to cheese you by building proxy barracks. That is a real risk, but I have never once seen that done on the level where I play. So by scouting early you could see the cheese and decide that your first unit out should be a zealot and not a dragoon. Since zealots builds faster, that might give you a combat unit out slightly faster to defend against marines in your base.

Scouting earlier would also allow you to get inside his base before his wall-in is completed. When you do that you could potentially figure out whether he intended to fast expand or go double factories. Unfortunately your probe have to survive being chased by marines for awhile before you can figure that out. And to make matters worse, some of the signs are not reliable on my level of play.

For instance Terrans rarely takes SCVs of gas even though they are fast expanding, so you can’t really deduct that 3 SCVs on gas means a double factory. So usually my probe ends up dead before it figures anything out. And it was not that I cared that much anyway. My first 4-5 dragoons + 2 dark templars are both useful for delaying a fast expand and to stop a two factory push.

Basically my conclusion is that I don’t see the point in a very early scout. It delays my first dragoons, risk the scout getting killed and will rarely yield any information that I wouldn’t get equally well when scouting earlier.

Celebrating defeat

Sometimes I feel that I suck more than others. Like lately I have lost a lot. I think I was like 24-22 on iccup and now I am 25-34. Sigh.

Some of it I can blame on encountering multiple 270 APM players with a record like 13-1, but most of it is just me not being good enough. Last season I mostly played against Terrans and developed a certain comfort in this match-up.

Against Terrans:
I almost always go 10/15 gate timing it so that I have dark templars out right after my 3rd or 5th dragoon. I don’t always know why I go with one over the other. I rarely win outright with the dragoons, but sometimes the dark templars will give me a free win. Recently I have started going straight for arbiters on just two bases. So far with decent results (I still lose, but hey… it is because I am bad).

Against Zerg:
I usually do a fast expand. I’ve learned that you need to cut probes around 15 supply to get enough canons and tech up in time. I havn’t been doing too great against zerg so far, but I mainly think I have issues of timing my build correctly. If I can secure my 3rd base and make it to the late game I win.

Against Protoss:
I used to two gate into robotics facility a lot, but I simply love the easy victory a 4-gate build sometimes gives me. Unfortunately that build tends to hand me some stupid loses too. Like when my opponent decides to do a 2 gate zealot opening and is very aggressive.

All these openings works great on Neo Medusa, which is map-of-the-week this week. It should offer me some opportunities. So far it has mostly given me loses :-)

The Value of Prepositioning your units

I suck at the game. I suck at macro, I suck at micro and I suck at keeping up my motivation. This season I have abandoned last season strategy on staying on one map and one match-up. I’m just playing on the most familiar Map of the Week against anyone about my own level.

Amazingly enough I seem to do best in Protoss vs Protoss and not against Terrans. Is all the effort I put into that match-up last season totally wasted? I don’t know.

Some days ago I played this game where the opening did not go as well as I had hoped. He had his expansion up earlier than me, his tech-level was further ahead and yet I did not have an overwhelming unit advantage as I should have. So what do you do?

My 14 dragoons and 1 zealot was outside his base and (as I later found out) he had 13 dragoons and one photon canon. Even odds and with him having shorter distance to his reinforcements an all but lost battle.

So I thought: let me arrange my units in this nice semi-circle in front of his expansion. After all, that is what the pros do. Shortly after being done with that he moved out slightly and I decided to meet him in battle.

To my utter surprise it went extremely well. His units came out in a line and were attacked from all side my my units. His army melted away. In fact he lost everything he had and my casualties were just 4 dragoons and my zealot.

After that engagement I simply killed him of in a matter of a minute or two. And the game provided an object lesson of how much prepositioning of units can mean. A lot. Apparently.

Bugged Replay

I was about to write a post about a Protoss vs Zerg game on Collosseum I played recently. I loaded up Starcraft prepared to take notes and screenshots from the game. But that was no good. Everytime I the replay got to the 40 second mark, my computer froze and I had to kill Starcraft with the Windows Task Manager.

So no screenshots this time around. Basically the game was a standard fast expand. It is hard to figure out your opponents build on Collosseum, so I had to do a forge and 2 cannons before my first nexus. Just to be sure. I have gambled too many time on that map and lost to a fast pool build and concluded that the canons are necessary.

So the problem is: You make your first gate way as fast as you can after the nexus. You need to produce at least two zealots to block the gaps in the wall-in and while making those I also start the cybernetics core. Once that finishes I make a Stargate, a Citadel of Adun and probably a couple of more canons.

This is point is where I become most vulnerable to mutalisks or a hydra break. If I think he will go for hydras I need more canons at the front; if not I need them inside the base. At the same time my economy is really starting to be strong, but I have still only one gateway.

In this game I wanted to show here, I suspect that if my build had been timed slightly better, I could have produced 2 or 3 more gateways that would have been done right before his attack arrived. I ended up making a ton of money while watching my bases being torn down.

In this the second game in R2 of TSL2 of Avi-Love vs. Kabel, I see that around 15 probes, Kabel stops making more probes for a while. I don’t like cutting probes, but I assume that it makes the gateway go up faster. Maybe even by a lot? Is it really worth it? Cutting probes early in the game tends to lead to huge disadvantages later in the game.

Unit Control

I’ve been playing a lot 1v1 versus D+ level Terrans lately. And my win ration is way down. I smile every time a defeat sends some 2900’ish opponent up into C-. Thinking: Good Luck up there suckers!

But I still lose. I kind of think that RushFlush’s advice solved my early game timing issue, and my build and macro is almost on the level that it needs to be.

Months ago the most common feedback I would get was to have better unit control. Back then I was certain that I had bigger issues than that and I have worked systematically to get them resolved. They are almost resolved now, which brings me back to unit control. Once the Terran breaks out with his 100-130 supply army, my similar sized army just vaporize. I have no idea how you face a Terran army head on.

Some argues that I need to work on my flanking and prepositioning . I mainly play Neo Medusa and while the center is not exactly narrow there really is no space to flank from. The front is literarily as wide as the open space in the center!

If my opponent is late in pushing out I get time to start recall harassment. That usually ends up winning the game for me and he will never push out. But that is a different story.

So how to proceeed…

Top 50 at Last

Today I made it to the list of the 50 best players in Denmark. It shouldn’t really impress anyone much, ‘cause Denmark is a very small pond when it comes to Starcraft. But it means a lot to me. For the last couple of weeks this has been my main goal. Especially after the following line at DailyRush.dk:

Tror der er 51 aktive spiller i DK. Fafner kommer end ikke i top 50.

Or in English:

I think there are 51 active players in Denmark. Fafner will never get in the top 50.

Kind of funny, but I really had to prove them wrong. Which I did. Today. I am now number 49, but I probably have to win even more in the future just to keep my position. At least until Avi-Love switches all his smurf account over to be marked as Danish. I think he likes to do that at the end of the season. My only hope is that he is to busy being defeated by Ret, Draco and Dreiven in ESL.

RushFlush has helped me get so far. While I don’t think his skill is that far ahead of mine, he has consistently helped me get better. After having watched my commentary below he simply said: “What you need to do is go a 10/15 dragoon build and then switch to dark templars”. I did. It helped a lot.