StarCraft II

[apocrypha]

Gotta watch till the very end (don't skip ahead on the last video).

HD Starcraft 2 TT1 v MasterAsia

1/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEV9niTmeOU

2/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aLBqeKd_lk

3/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww_w7sh6NWY

4/4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOY2ve7zHb4

That was awesome! And slightly scary. The bit when both of them were attacking the other bases in multiple places and microing at the same time.... not human O_o

[jakonovski]

I've been playing like shit lately, and consequently got bumped back into bronze. I think that in silver I need to use PF instead of OC. I can't beat the good silver players in macro yet, so I'm better off leveraging the maneuver game.

[Ginaz]

I'm getting a bit better.  I was 12-6 today and 27-34 overall.  I'm surprised at how many people fail to check the back and sides of their base in case the other guy has dropped something there.

[Mosesandstick]

That replay was golden, one of the best I've seen 

[K9]

Fun replay.

I'm really struggling to enjoy Day9's casts, I think the way he excessively over analyses and keeps pausing and jumping around rather kills it for me. Watching HD or Husky is more cinematic and enjoyable, as the game just plays through.

[Malakili]

Fun replay.

I'm really struggling to enjoy Day9's casts, I think the way he excessively over analyses and keeps pausing and jumping around rather kills it for me. Watching HD or Husky is more cinematic and enjoyable, as the game just plays through.

Well, Day9 isn't shoutcasting in his dailies, its supposed to be a learning show.  Its like watching film to an NFL team vs. watching Monday Night Football.  Of course MNF is more entertaining, but that isn't the point.

[Malakili]

Played against a zerg who six pooled and then expanded to the gold immediately when I over reacted by chronoboosting out like 4 zealots.  Its my own fault for not being able to scout, but I was CERTAIN there must he a legion of zerglings just waiting for my zealots to leave my front so they could run in and wipe out my economy.  Turns out, if I had pushed out with those zealots I probably would've won the game outright.

I watch SO many replays of my games where I could have won if only I would've made the right decision at a certain point and I make the wrong decision SO OFTEN.  It is singularly the source of my rage in this game, I can deal with losing streaks, I hate cheese but I can deal with being cheesed, but these mistakes I make game after game occasionally throw me into a frenzy.

[Soulflame]

The ranking system is so blasted weird.  I got placed into bronze after my matches.

Last night I handily beat a gold player.

I don't even really have a good grasp of what I'm doing.  All I did was barracks, marines, then add the engineering bay for marauders, then factory for tanks, starport for one medivac and one viking.  Added two more barracks when I saw I had way too many minerals.  Grabbed two tanks in the medivac with the idea of doing a harass on his economy, did a glorious drop on his expansion, thrashed that, then dropped them on his workers in the back.  I then pressed the front with a decent force, including too many marauders, blew up his thors, and he quit out because all he had left were a couple tanks.

I then watched the replay and realized he could have destroyed me at about any time from the 5 minute mark to about the 15 minute mark, when my forces started to overtake his, because he decided to build lots of thors.  I got supply blocked a couple times, my forces were ridiculously puny until my second push, I never bothered with upgrades other than stim and siege, and I still managed to win.

 

[Rasix]

I don't even really have a good grasp of what I'm doing.  All I did was barracks, marines, then add the engineering bay for marauders, then factory for tanks, starport for one medivac

 

[Soulflame]

Tech lab.  See?  I can't even remember building names!

edit: I never even built an engineering bay, now that I think about it.

[Malakili]

I wish I was more consistent at this game :(.   The good moments are SO good, and the bad moments are soo bad.  It makes the game addicting because it gets so much adrenaline pumping through your veins, but sometimes I wonder if its worth it. 

[jakonovski]

Yeah, the game's intense enough at bronze/silver level, can't imagine gold & beyond.

Compulsory horn autotooting: I feel soooo good when things go like the last two games, where the opponent outmacroed me by 20-50%, but had absolutely no chance because of my strategery expertise. He scouted my medevacs and started building air defenses like crazy, but instead I just landed upgraded siege tanks and infantry on an expansion site overlooking his base, where the path to his base was blocked by rubble. I could leave most of my army defending the base against his push and just destroyed his base right when his dudes arrived at mine.  

[Segoris]

I'm kind of thinking the intensity is about equal. When you're ready to move to diamond, I think the bronze/silver would feel a lot less intense where as moving up a league creates a new high. The closest analogy I can think of would be alcohol tolerance, or adrenaline junkies. That's how I look at it anyways.

As a side note, I found out that when you're in 2v2 and your partner drops you get control of his troops (that is if he wasn't killed and left voluntarily). That was a fun 2v1 I overcame, and don't think they expected me, as protoss, to be bringing in reapers and siege tanks to compliment my own army Next time, I have to test a medivac and see if it will heal my bio units. Medivacs + rechargeable shields...yes please.

[Teleku]

I wish I was more consistent at this game :(.   The good moments are SO good, and the bad moments are soo bad.  It makes the game addicting because it gets so much adrenaline pumping through your veins, but sometimes I wonder if its worth it. 

My suggestion is to stop worry about rank so much, and get yourself good and drunk before a nights play session.  I never have a "bad moment" when play in SC2 multi player drunk!

[jakonovski]

I have discovered a strategy that works against me 100%: stalemate. I just can't bear to play more than half an hour, and the second shit starts looking grim I GG away.

[K9]

Boring your opponent to death is a popular Terran strategy.

[jakonovski]

In my continuing quest to discover awesome units I never used before, how about some Ravens. They kill stealth strats dead dead dead, and the turret spam they can unleash is just sick.

[Malakili]

I just managed to lost 2 games to complete idiocy.

Game 1) I accidentally rallied my nexus to a gas node at some point and ended up with like 12 probes in one gas, and I was wondering why I was so mineral starved.  he just out macroed me and won.  Durrrrrrrrrrrr

Game 2) I was going to collosi against a protoss who was going for a bunch of gates, and I was just getting my first one out when he apparently scouted it and started pumping out immortals.  I saw them coming as they headed out across the map and was like "its no thang, I'lk just use my warp gates and warp in a bunch of zealots to get up in their face"  But...I was supply blocked...and by the time my pylons warped in it was just too little too late.


Its these kind of errors that I make really frequently and I hate losing to that stuff.  On the plus side, if I can clean that up I might actually make it to Diamond, at least I have things I know I can work on  

[K9]

I see supply as similar to workers, it's something you just have to be producing non-stop, not when you need it. Zerg are the worst for getting supply blocked in my experience, so I have to force myself to keep churning out overlords whenever I can.

[Malakili]

I see supply as similar to workers, it's something you just have to be producing non-stop, not when you need it. Zerg are the worst for getting supply blocked in my experience, so I have to force myself to keep churning out overlords whenever I can.

Yeah, it really is, I'm just really REALLY bad at remembering it still.  I get supply blocked at least once and usually more per game, and it has really cost me a lot of games when I should be able to warp in a bunch of units right at that critical moment, and then can't, and other times when it has just slowed down my macro enough that by the time the decisive battle comes I am 15-20 food behind.  I think if I could consistently keep myself un-supply blocked (under supply, over supply? Whatever the good one to be is), I would win probably 10-20% of the games that I lose, at least.

[Lantyssa]

Make a pylon farm then!

[Malakili]

Make a pylon farm then!

Unfortunately making huge numbers of pylons all at once is just as bad as forgetting to make them you really need to build them one at a time, ideally having the current one finish just as you would become supply blocked, this allows you to have maximum resources for supply/upgrades without "wasting" resources on something that you'll need 30 seconds from now.  Its that kind of management that I need the most work on.  I've spent the last 3 games REALLY paying attention to my supply and my mini map and it helps some, but in the mid game when stuff starts happening all over the map, it becomes really difficult for me to keep up with everything that needs doing, both mentally and physically.

I've heard Day9 say something along the lines of you should never be thinking about what you're doing, always what you are going to do next, but of course, doing that requires that you get good enough at doing things that you can do them from muscle memory once you've decided, so you can move on mentally while still doing the task physically. 

[Segoris]

That's true, but that's also why I agree with the wisdom of work on improving 1-2 things at a time until it becomes something you don't have to think about. Right now, you're at a point where preventing supply blocks while doing other things is important. For me, I'm becoming much better about it since I've made sure to make a mental note of anytime I cycle through my unit making buildings that I check my supply with no exceptions, even at 200 just to really drive home that habit. I have my unit producing buildings hot keyed to my macro buttons on my keyboard and when I cycle through I just include that mental check at the end.

It's been working pretty well and has improved me in that I don't supply block myself as much as I was before. Granted, I have a thousand other things to improve on, but supply blocking is becoming less and less of one of those items with each game lately.

[Fordel]

I think the most interesting thing is the prospect of draw scenarios.  That was basically a draw, but they just decided to make it not a draw because it was a ladder game that didn't really matter in the long run.  I wonder how something like that plays out if a few thousand bucks is on the line.

I'd probably just have them replay the game if I was the tourney organizer.

[Ingmar]

Match loss for both players clearly!

It only matters in single-elimination time anyway, if you've got say swiss pairings going before a cut to a top 8 or whatever then the system can handle draws.

[Rasix]

I've seen contingency stuff for that in place for tournament announcements.  They'll replay the game.

[Malakili]

Madfrog v. WhiteRa in IEM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7fcwUiYCpc
 

[birdsguts]

Fun replay.

I'm really struggling to enjoy Day9's casts, I think the way he excessively over analyses and keeps pausing and jumping around rather kills it for me. Watching HD or Husky is more cinematic and enjoyable, as the game just plays through.

As Malakili already mentioned Day9 has two ways he does stuff.
Educator mode and Shoutcaster mode.

You may have already seen this but the first two games between Tester and IntoTheRainbow during that King of the Beta thing were really really neat to see because you could actually "feel" the back and forth pushing between the two players in places.
It's also a somewhat decent example of the Day9 casting style. Sort of a comedy take on it. Lots of dumb jokes. Makes it fun though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lPhvPZ9Lkc
The crowd in this one helps alot. Follow the "video responses" to see part 2 and at LEAST the second match if you haven't already.
I think he just did some casting for a German (iirc) tournament too if you want to see even more "normal" style shoutcast stuff from him.

Yeah, it really is, I'm just really REALLY bad at remembering it still.  I get supply blocked at least once and usually more per game, and it has really cost me a lot of games when I should be able to warp in a bunch of units right at that critical moment, and then can't, and other times when it has just slowed down my macro enough that by the time the decisive battle comes I am 15-20 food behind.  I think if I could consistently keep myself un-supply blocked (under supply, over supply? Whatever the good one to be is), I would win probably 10-20% of the games that I lose, at least.

You probably already have this.. and may have even done this already, but I'll suggest it anyway just in case.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=127833.
QXC himself made a build order tester.
He had to stop supporting it but passed it off to this other guy who has maintained it pretty well.
That link has a download of the release version in spoiler tags..... and I'll put the link HERE as well.

This might be way too boring for some of you, but I really enjoy just feeling my ability to macro and execute a build "tightening up".
The cool thing about the build tester is you can just use the hotkeys to reset the map instantly.
So lets say you can only get up to about 30 supply before you start to get confused and "block" yourself or loose track of when to put workers on gas.
All you have to do is hit that Ctrl+X or C or Z (race dependent) and just start over at base supply.

This allows you to go quickly through the equivalent of a dozen or so matches in the time it takes to do one.
True you aren't flexing your micro or strategy muscles, but you are getting your mechanics down really fast and solid.
You can even start to move your eyes around faster watching the minimap and money/supply counts and learn to absorb that info really quickly while you constantly tap those hotkeys to check your macro progress. It also helps to pretend things are happening and force yourself to try and move units in a box shape or something while keeping up with the macro and supply numbers.
If you go into it just looking to make it to a higher supply number faster and more "smoothly" each time it almost becomes a game in it's own right.
Also it fulfills day9s suggestion to focus on one aspect at a time like you mentioned earlier.

If you do end up downloading it note that you need to launch the Starcraft2 Map Editor and then use File>Open to open the map and then the File>Test Document to load it correctly. If you just double click on the map file it won't work.


Hope this info isn't painfully redundant, it really has helped me commit to muscle memory the handful of builds I'm working to become competent with right now so I'm trying to just pass that along.

Turn it into a little game and do it once a day for a half hour or so for a week and you will feel so much more confident when you actually play. You get to start focusing on the "fun" things in matches.. .like drops and harassment and intel.

[K9]

Madfrog v. WhiteRa in IEM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7fcwUiYCpc
 

[Kail]

So, I finished the 1p campaign, and am going to whine about it:


Anyways, trying to get my act together in practice games before I tackle multiplayer.  I thought I'd give the Zerg a try, since it seems to be what all the cool kids are going, but is it just me, or are they like ten times harder to macro than every other race?  As the Protoss or Terrans I can just hit the hotkey for my base and tap "E" or "S" a couple times every time I hear the "worker finished" bloop, and my economy is fine without me doing anything (minus some chronoboosting for the Protoss).  As the Zerg, though, you gotta know when larvae are spawning and then you gotta morph all the ones you need to Drones and then you have to assign each individual drone to a task, plus you have to move your Overlords around to spread creep and keep your Queens spawning larvae and creep colonies.  I don't know if I'm overcomplicating the Zerg or missing some major aspect of Terran/Protoss play, but it's getting crazy.  I can completely stomp the AI as Terrans or Protoss, but as Zerg they routinely roll right into my base when I'm trying to sort out my army of Drones and Queens and Overlords and only have a half dozen Zerglings.  Ugh.

[birdsguts]

You don't have to actually assign each drone to task individually.

Just highlight the Hatchery and press the "G" key to set a worker rally point.
Then you just right click as usual where you want the normal troop spawn to rally.

If you watch an IdrA replay from his PoV you can actually see that often once one mineral field is saturated he'll rally all workers from all hatches to the next expo using a group hotkey and re-rally all units to wherever they are needed.

edit:
Also, as far as keeping track of larvae.
It's hard to remember at first when the queen spawns are dropping, but if you need to check up on how many you have as you go along you can just hit your hotkey for the hatches and hit "S" which selects all the larva you have in that hotkey grouping.... So you'll know when you have larva sitting there when you hit [basehotkey] + S and then look in your unit window. If there aren't any there yet go do something else for a few ticks... then check again... Got some larva? Spawn some drones/units.

Hardest thing to learn by far with Zerg is tempo.

edit2:
@Kail
One thing I forgot to mention about Queens.
Easiest way to keep track of them as far as spawning larva?
Hotkey them all as a group onto a key... like 4 or something.
When you need to spawn larva just hit 4 to select all your Queens.
Hit V to activate the cursor for "Spawn Larva".
Hit backspace to center the screen on your starting Hatch.
Hold shift and click the hatch to cast Spawn Larva on it.
Hit backspace while still holding shift and it will center you on your next Hatch.
Click that one while still holding shift.
The game will automatically make your nearest Queens do the hatch spitting even if they are all selected in the group when you cast the spell.

That looks dense but the full sequence is actually pretty simple.
Two Hatch example.
4 > V > Shift[hold] > Backspace > Leftclick > Backspace > Leftclick > Shift[release] Then go back to what you were doing.

One final thing.
Spacebar is your friend as far as helping your memory.
Hit that thing all the time and you'll be kept up to date with stuff finishing.

[Malakili]

Anyways, trying to get my act together in practice games before I tackle multiplayer.  I thought I'd give the Zerg a try, since it seems to be what all the cool kids are going, but is it just me, or are they like ten times harder to macro than every other race?  As the Protoss or Terrans I can just hit the hotkey for my base and tap "E" or "S" a couple times every time I hear the "worker finished" bloop, and my economy is fine without me doing anything (minus some chronoboosting for the Protoss).  As the Zerg, though, you gotta know when larvae are spawning and then you gotta morph all the ones you need to Drones and then you have to assign each individual drone to a task, plus you have to move your Overlords around to spread creep and keep your Queens spawning larvae and creep colonies.  I don't know if I'm overcomplicating the Zerg or missing some major aspect of Terran/Protoss play, but it's getting crazy.  I can completely stomp the AI as Terrans or Protoss, but as Zerg they routinely roll right into my base when I'm trying to sort out my army of Drones and Queens and Overlords and only have a half dozen Zerglings.  Ugh.

Terran have to manage Orbital Command energy (scans, MULES), protoss have to manage chrono boost, zerg have to manage spawn larvae from the queen, those are the 3 macro mechanics.  It sounds like you haven't discovered that you can set rally points to your mineral line from your hatchery.  The hatchery has a separate rally point for drones and everything else, so you don't need to spend time sorting out your drones any more than the other races.  That being said, Zerg is probably the most micro intensive of the macro mechanics in SC2, and the most difficult to time and manage properly.  

A general one base zerg opening is generally: 13 pool 13 gas, a economic build is 15 hatch (at natural expansion), 14 pool, and a early aggression build can be something like an 11 pool or even early if you are going for a ton of early aggression.  Unless you are going for some sort of all in zergling rush, get a queen out ASAP and start puking larvae onto your hatcheries right away and link up your bases with creep tumor if you did an early expand.  You only need 1 queen for 2 hatcheries, though many people get a separate queen for each since they are good to have around for creep tumors and early anti-air.

Ask any other questions you have.

[trias_e]

Here's me getting rolled over in the first round of a 2+2 forum tournament.

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/60096-1v1-protoss-zerg-metalopolis
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/60097-1v1-protoss-zerg-scrap-station

And here's a  52 minute TvZ featuring ultras and battlecruisers.  It really shouldn't have lasted that long tbh, but I still think its fairly epic.

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/60086-1v1-terran-zerg-kulas-ravine

[Ironwood]

So I lost the internet for 24 hours yesterday.

No problem, I thought, I'll play offline.

Clicked that and it said I had to Connect to Battle.net to verify that I wanted to play offline.

This is the future of gaming.

[Ironwood]

And here's a  52 minute TvZ featuring ultras and battlecruisers.  It really shouldn't have lasted that long tbh, but I still think its fairly epic.

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/60086-1v1-terran-zerg-kulas-ravine

Infestors would have cut half an hour outta that game.  What's funny is you clearly KNOW that, since you used your infestors to take his BC a lot in that game.  Then you wasted all that time, gas and minerals making corrupters when 4 infestors would have done the job.

I loved the creep though.  You spread that shit AROUND.