Quest to not suck at Starcraft II
Finally, I won a game (though it was definitely not deserved…). It was a PvZ (ironically my worst matchup). I was so rusty that I didn’t even take my 3rd at the right place… I kept going after my 4th to take my 3rd and completely ignored the inbase expo on Cloud…
Summary: (Cloud Kingdom)
I have been trying this 4gate opening after FFE but my opening was so late. This was because I hate letting zerg sit and macro off 3 base and do that roach timing. I saw he never took a 3rd so I was really confused and I decided w/e and push into the natural (didn’t really work that well). Scouted that he took the top base for his 3rd and I sent a few zealots but by then he had mutas so I couldn’t even pick off his queen. He tried to harass and I went stalker, archon, HT, Immortal and got some sick storms on his mutas and eventually rolled him over.
Analysis/What went through my head:
I tried the 4gate after FFE opener but it’s really meant to take out the 3rd. If I saw it earlier, I would have taken it out.
See? I was on the wrong side of the map… I was also about, err 6 minutes late…
Not that many Zergs still go muta anymore. The reason is that blink stalkers are pretty good and HTs do so much damage to mutas really fast and forces a retreat or buys enough time for your stalkers to get them.
I was pumping out immortals to make sure that the roaches were handled with and then archons too because splash on lings is pretty solid.
What was good:
My macro was a bit better this time and I felt some rust rub off the longer this game went. Still a lot of rust though. My unit control was a bit better, changing my hotkeys and control groups really did work for the better.
One of the many great storms I landed.
What was bad:
I can’t believe I forgot which 3rd to take…. It delayed me SO much because I tried to take it at least 4 times and never even built it because he camped lings there. I eventually realized where to take my 3rd and I was set.
Link to replay:
Choke points OP
So I’ve recently changed my hot keys around and this game came down to making a stupid mistake with my hotkeys and not being able to blink away in time and losing almost my entire army.
Summary:
I went 3gate robo blink and my opponent went colossi. I scouted his army with only a few sentries, stalkers and a colossi. I saw a window and pushed. When I tried to blink away after he FF’s my stalkers in, realized my hotkeys were messed up and I couldn’t blink away in time. The game kept going for a long time and I tried to double expand and get a mothership out and maybe vortex his army. He sat back, upgraded and made pretty much every ground unit. I didn’t have enough and died.
Those gates and sentry was not supposed to be on that control group…
Analysis/ What went through my head:
I saw the quick colossi and his nexus was a bit earlier than mine. Figured that I had a window but I kept sitting back trying to get more units and by then there were too many units.
I made a stupid decision trying to push there and blink into the colossi, I figured if I can start warping in some zealots on the side I could do a double pronged attack. That didn’t work too well.
What I should have done was sat at his ramp and used my stalkers to blink into his base. When I did that, I could do some damage and depending on how many units he moved- I could push up the ramp with a few immortals and zealots.
What was good:
I think I did a decent job mechanically relatively anyway. The build was good but my reaction and decision making did.
What was bad:
My decision making was kinda poor. The build is meant to blink into their base and harass and do damage so you can expo and tech to other things. I shouldn’t have pushed up knowing that there were so many sentries protecting his colossi. The engagement was awful.
Link to replay:
So it has been about a month since I’ve played. My computer couldn’t handle starcraft (I have been playing on my friend’s computers). After school finished however, I had no computer to play with and thus rust accumulated. I ordered my new laptop and started playing. Oh man was I rusty.
Summary: (Antiga Shipyard)
I opened 1 gate expo, fairly standard. He all-in’d me and I couldn’t hold it, gg’d out.
Analysis/What went through my head:
I thought it was cloaked banshees because I saw very few units and I saw a factory building so I figured he would throw a starport and get cloaked banshees. Unfortunately, I got my robo really late, by about 40 seconds. This caused me to get my obs so late that I only scouted him when he pushed out. I simply wasn’t ready for it.
I got a probe in the base a lot earlier and saw everything but he only had about 3 marines so I figured he was going for cloaked banshees. I thus made my first obs to sit in my base, had units spread out everywhere and by the time my second obs came out to scout his base, I realized I was wrong.
I’m not too sure whether this unit comp was actually good for it, I may try it out a bit more so we’ll see.
What was good:
Not much to be honest, it’s expected since I was so rusty.
What was bad:
Lots of things, I was floating so much money. My macro was bad, I missed a ton of warp ins, missed lots of probes, didn’t even get my templar archives up on time. The scouting was decent actually, If I scouted it earlier I would have been fine, problem was that my robo was 40 seconds late. That’s so much time when it comes to preparing for the all-in. It wasn’t really a 1-1-1 because there were no banshees, pure marine-tank and two medivacs.
Link of Replay:
If I only had storm or some Archons?
Well, I’ve played/blogged about 10 games and tracked my improvement throughout those games.
The bad that got good:
I went back and looked at things I said I needed to work on and then I saw what actually improved
- My 4gate defense is a LOT better now. I have faced a 4gate in almost all my PvPs and I’ve gotten better at stopping them. I make sure now to scout the proxy pylons being placed and it helps a ton.
- I’m a lot better at creating production facilities now. I suffered from floating a lot of resources because I don’t make enough gates. In fact, in the most recent PvP I played, I had too many gates and couldn’t produce out of them (better than having not enough).
- My use of chronoboost has gotten a lot better. I’m now hearing “not enough energy” a lot more than the “whoooossh” sound :P
- My engagements still need a bit of work but they are a lot better than before. I am a lot better at judging what my army is capable of fighting and what it is not.
- My scouting has gotten better but still need to work on all aspects
I always liked Cloud Kingdom, now I see why. I have an 80% win-rate on it (my one loss was a cheese). Still, small sample size.
Yay for progress!
Man I haven’t laddered in quite a bit of time. Finals suck but alas, it is Friday so I have a bit of time to ladder. Of course, what would a day of ladder be without a PvP?
Summary: (Shakuras Plateau)
My Opponent does a 4gate and I find his proxy pylons and snipe them so he pulls back and expos. I was nervous about his 4gate because I didn’t notice he expo’d and I threw down my expo by the time his finished. He pushes with a size-able force and I throw a FF down and he pulls back. He then throws down a 3rd and I throw my 3rd down as soon as his finishes (Again -.-) I’m quite behind so I’m pumping out upgrades and double-robo colossi. The game goes on and we eventually stabalize at our three base but I have two robos to his one, and 11 gates to his 7 and I out macro’d him and after a few bad engagements on his part, I won.
Analysis/What ran through my head
I saw the 4gate coming (I noticed later that my probe was actually in his base long enough to see the 4 gates but I just assumed from looking at his gas count and chrono. I knew I was behind as soon as I scouted his nexus because I saw he was saturated while I was just moving probes. When I saw this, I knew there was only one real way for me to catch up.
- Upgrades
- Colossi
I saw he was staying on single robo so I threw down a double robo to pump out colossi. In the end I had more than double his colossi count and I was 3/3 while he was watching. My colossi shredded his ground force and his regular army.
In reality, the only way to catch up in the position I was in was to do economic damage to him. I felt confident that I could simply out macro him so I went double robo. In retrospect, I was right. He was floating about 1k, 1k while I had trouble getting above 200-300 minerals. (Note to self: It’s really hard to support 11 gates and double robo colossi off 3 base)
Shakuras Cheese:
In every map, there are certain locations where Protoss almost always keep pylons. This could be for cheese, a secret pylon for harassment, you name it. Shakuras has three major locations where you can keep a pylon in their base:
The place at the top can be used for easy access into your 3rd and your main. If they destroy the rocks, they can easily send a zealot hit squad to your 3rd (Except Zerg because that’s an awful 3rd for them). It can also warp into their base with high ground vision which is annoying.
Earlier into the game they can keep a pylon in your third, this is not a big deal but you wanna scout here regardless.
The big one is to the far left because the shrubs prevent vision and it’s easy to hid things in there. This is a great location for pylons or proxy gates or stargate.
That’s why I kept the pylon over there so I can have high ground vision of the area behind the shrubs. It caught the pylon and pretty much saved me.
What was Good:
My macro was so good this game in my opinon. I was always low on minerals (gas is a different story). My scouting wasn’t too bad, I knew exactly what he was doing the entire time. I had a good tabs on his army composition and knew everything he was doing throughout the game (more or less).
I also did a good job with my upgrades and hit a decently timed 3/3 when he was 3/0.
My chronoboost energy was almost always fairly low! This was the case until late game but I was very very happy with this because it is such a vital resource for Protoss and you need to use it.
What was bad:
Well, while my scouting on his army and tech was really good- I had an awful sense of his expo timings. Both times, his expo finished by the time I started mine.
While my macro was good, I realized that I was floating a decent amount of gas. I think what I needed to do was throw down a Templar archives and start using the gas for HTs and make Archons. Sentries would have been useless because he had blink and Colossi so FFs would have been fruitless.
Link to Replay:
Soo many lolossus.
Bound to have happened eventually now that I started playing plats… I got cheesed and lost. I was kinda hoping for a cheese because I need to work on my crisis management a lot more.
Summary:
He did a 4gate and I knew it was coming and everything, I was ready. This was a different 4gate though. He only collected 50 gas to research warpgate and made pure zealot. I didn’t notice a probe in my base until it was running around sprinkling pylons everywhere. I made a couple of bad decisions and I was over run by zealots warping into my base.
Analysis/What went through my head:
So basically I saw the probe a second before he made the pylon. He made it and I figured I’d try to get the probe. This was a brain fart but I sent my zealot after the probe and left my stalker to kill the pylon. I couldn’t kill the probe and eventually I couldn’t kill the pylons fast enough.
What was good:
To be honest, nothing really was good. It all came down to micro and I failed to micro properly.
What was bad:
So the first part, I mentioned where I used the zealot to attack the probe while the stalker took out the pylon. Zealots do more damage and are melee so you want them attacking the pylon while the stalker goes and shoots down the probe.
Zealots are slower than workers…
I still wasn’t dead at this point believe it or not. He eventually abandoned the idea of warping in with that pylon and started peppering them across my base. I warped in more zealots to take out a pylon while my probes dealt with the other one. This is another place I screwed up. I had a surround but not all my probes were attacking because they couldn’t reach the pylon. If I used those derping probes to kill other pylons he wouldn’t have even gotten one warp in of zealots.
Herp Derp.
After the zealots warped in, stupidly I warped in more zealots. You shouldn’t do this because if he has more zealots than you-then, unless you micro, your zealots will always lose. At this junction I already pretty much lost but I needed to start warping stalkers in to deal with the zealots because I can kite them indefinitely.
Link to Replay:
Two Terrans back-to-back! I’m starting to feel as if this is truly my strongest match up. I decided I wanted to use High Templar this game instead of colossi, it went pretty well I’d say.
Summay:
This was a bit of a long game but basically I opened up with a standard 1g expo while the Terran opened up with a THREE rax. (He threw a reactor on one of them when he moved out). I scouted the second rax with my probe so I was ready for a two rax and I saw him move out with a stalker- so I knew his composition (pure marine). He pushed again after he got some MM with stim out. I got some good FFs and cleaned up his army.
At this point, after two failed rushes he was down about 10-15 supply. But he killed a few of my sentries so I couldn’t ever push my advantage. The game went on and I kept expanding and macroing, eventually having essential 3 base Toss against 1 base T. Eventually he tried to push and lost his army and then I countered and killed him.
Analysis/What went through my head:
Seems like every T opens with a two rax (or three in this case) and tries to kill me out right. It never works so I just start with a lead. There isn’t much to this game except I got some nice storms off. He built the two rax in my face so I knew exactly what was coming and was ready to pull probes if need be. Overall it was just a very standard game and the only reason I made HTs was because I felt like it, not because I saw anything in particular.
What I learned/what was good:
My macro wasn’t bad and I was at minimum one base ahead the entire game and by the end of the final battle I was about 40 probes ahead (without doing any harassment).
Probably my only good storm that game.
What was bad:
So I was ahead the entire game since his 3rax hit. Pretty much his only way of getting back in was for me to screw up hard or him do harassment damage. He did a drop in my main about 3-4 times (same medivac that I never killed). My pylon spread was pretty rough this game and I need to work on it.
I need to work on landing my storms, that’ll come with practice since this is probably the only time in recent memory where I have even used HTs.
My unit control was god-awful this game. My hotkeys kept getting messed up and I realized that maybe the hotkeys I use aren’t the best for fast reactions and handling drops. I’ll try to change them up a bit and fiddle around.
Link to Replay:
Huzzah! My first PvT in this entire series. This is my best matchup because I’ve finally learned how to deal with early game pressure such as 2rax or other business like that. This guy was Plat! Looks like Blizzard is recognizing my Gosuness 8)
Summary: (Cloud Kingdom)
I open 1gate expo and he does a 2rax expo. I only saw 1 rax because the other was hidden but I had a probe at the watch tower and saw his army chilling outside my ramp. At that instant, I cancelled the nexus and began warping out of my 3gates and held off the push. I destroyed his entire army and only lost a few zealots at the most so I was about 20 supply ahead. I got an immortal and poked but saw 3 bunkers and retreated. Eventually got more units and killed him.
Analysis/What went through my head:
So I’m not too sure on whether I should have cancelled that nexus. I thought that I should just cancel and then if I destroy his army I would be significantly ahead (which was true). Problem was that he had an expo so he caught up by the time I was killing him.
The problem here is that if I don’t cancel my nexus I risk not having enough to hold his push and even losing that nexus because I can’t fight in a choke. If I do, I’m behind but I’ve destroyed his army. If he just poked and retreated when he saw I had sentries he would have won because I cancelled my nexus. So I guess I got lucky, not really 100% sure what to do here.
There was a major indication to the two rax even though I didn’t scout the second rax. I had a probe watching his every move because of my watch tower vision. This is something that you should ALWAYS do, destroy any unit holding the watch tower. Problem was that I was able to watch his every move and the was able to time my units with his push. If you don’t want to be scouted, avoid the tower range. It’s ok if you destroy the tower unit and give away your push, but at least you don’t show your exact push timing down to the last second.
I see you.
The value of splitting armies:
So, this is something a lot of people I see do (including myself) but you absolutely shouldn’t (unless it’s PvP). They see an army going up their ramp and they FF the ramp. Problem is, they FF ALL of the units out. You have to split the army up.
The entire Protoss early game revolves around the sentry, your army will be weaker then theirs but you have an amazing defensive tool in FF. Your army probably cannot take their entire army, but it can DEFINITELY handle a third, or even half of their army.
A tip for anyone that is trying to push up a ramp against toss: try to bait FFs. When you put your army outside, you can send a small number of lings or marines (1 or 2) and try to make them throw quick FFs. If you can’t bait FFs you have to gauge the sentry count. If there are a lot of sentries, you do not want to push because a single FF could end your game right there.
He lost every single one of those units. Game, Set, Match.
What I learned/what was good:
I learned the effectiveness of harassing and attacking at the same time. I used an observe and a low ground pylon at one point to warp in zealots into his base while I pushed into his natural. This worked decently, I misplaced my pylon so I didn’t have much room to warp (about two hexes). If I put the pylon closer, I would have been able to warp in more at a time and do more damage while I hit his main. I need to utilize double-pronged attacks more often.
What was bad:
I need to do better at recognizing what kinds of armies/situations my army can go and fight against/in. I had a moment when my first immortal came out where I could have pushed in and killed him. Instead, I retreated and let him recover more and more because he had an expansion up and running and mine was just starting off.
I’ve complained about my scouting before and it was rough here as well. I was confident because I knew I was ahead but still, need to keep up that scouting. Don’t want to die to something stupid.
Link to the Replay:
Alas, what’s a day of ladder without a multitude of PvPs? I was a little rusty going into this and since it was my first game in a few days I was just warming up. Lucky for me, I still one. There wasn’t much from this game so I most likely won’t be doing posts on these types of games from now on, but I figured I do it. After all, there is a small lesson somewhere in here.
Summary: (Entombed Valley)
So I start the game, glhf and all, and I scout to see him doing a fast expand. It looked like at Forge fast expand in terms of positioning but he was doing a 3gate robo. Idk, weird. So I was like wtf is this, and just 4gated him and he died.
What I learned:
Well, the only real lesson to be taken away from this is this:
When your opponent is doing something weird, just go f****** kill him
-Day9
Analysis:
So, not much analysis here. I kinda did this 4 gate on a whim. If anyone else was doing this 3gate robo properly, my 4gate wouldn’t have killed him. This is because I scouted this weird build kinda late and was indecisive with my 4gate so I was about one minute late.
What was good:
I won.
What was bad:
I need to be more quick and decisive with my moves. It’s ok if they are wrong right now, I just need to make them because doing the wrong thing is better than doing nothing.
Warning: Do not look at this replay if you wanna actually learn a 4gate TT
Link to Replay:
Seriously, what the f*** is this!?
FINALLY a matchup that’s not PvP. I was kinda scared going into it because my PvZ is, at best, struggling right now. I can’t seem to stop the Stephano 3 base pure roach build where they max out at 12 min. Granted many people in my league can’t actually do it well but it’s good enough to stop me. My main problem with that build is that, like the 1-1-1 in TvP, it’s not too hard to pull off but it’s really hard to stop.
/n00bbalancerant
Summary: Cloud Kingdom
So the match starts and I opened with an FFE. The Zerg goes Hatch first so I decided to cannon rush the base. I lost one cannon because I forgot to cancel >< but eventually got one up that eventually destroyed about 5 drones, an overlord, AND HIS HATCHERY.
RIP Hatchery- look at that worker difference
I then transitioned into a 7gate +2 blink all in while he had to sit back, rebuild his natural and started making roaches. He never got a 3rd so I was able to just push and he couldn’t hold it.
+2 Blink Stalkers, gg
Analysis/What went through my head
So I when I ran into his base, I saw a decent amount of drones, no gas, no pool. This meant that he was going 15 hatch. I immediately went to send my probe down to block the hatch but I missed it by about a millisecond. I cannon rushed because I knew that:
- He had no way of making lings so he had to use his drones to fight it off.
- Even if I can’t get a cannon up and just waste his mining time- I can sit back and work on my FFE while he spends his drones trying to stop my cannon rush (thus losing mining time).
I went for a 7gate blink all in because I knew I was way ahead after killing his hatchery. If I sat back and macro’d I would have won eventually but I figured I can practice blink micro and just kill him.
(Somewhere, Artosis frowns)
What was good:
My play overall was pretty solid. My +2 timing was decent and I got my gates up with blink and everything with some solid timings. I made sure to keep constant tabs on his 3rd so that I can see what he was planning on doing. So yay, better scouting- I always had tabs on his 3rd and his army composition.
What was bad:
The only thing I really remember being bad was forgetting to cancel the first cannon that I made. I’m pretty slow at moving out with my units when I wanna push during an FFE. This is a problem against Zerg because any wasted time gives the Zerg time to get more spines or units. With a timing attack, things like that can make all the difference- if you miss your timing window you can lose the game right there.
Link to Replay:
