Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Protoss vs Zerg 6 immortal Push

About the build:

The build is intended to at the very least due a lot of damage, but most of the times out right kill the enemy. The idea is to get 6 immortals and 10-25 gateway units and push out very fast to catch your zerg victim off guard. It's also meant to be able to transition if the push doesn't entirely kill your enemy.

This is for sure a timing attack that plans to hit before they get too big of a mass of units, so crisp build time and execution means a lot. It hits a timing where most zergs just finished getting their tech and droning and don't have a mass of units.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Positive Mindset - Key to winning in Starcraft 2

You've probably all heard sayings repeated over and over like "The Power of Positive Thinking" and "Healthy Body, Healthy Mind", and there's a reason they're repeated: they're true! Think about IdrA, he's among the most phenomenal SC2 players of our time. His mechanics and game-sense are on a whole other level than the average player, but you still see him struggle in tournaments and make bad decisions when he's in pressure-filled situations. Anger, you'll find, is a SC2 player's worst enemy.

So, how can we apply this to our game? It's simple:

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Hyper-Aggressive ZvT: Countering the 2Rax

The Concept

Once you drone scout, respond to 2rax pressure by immediately baneling busting on 1base. This is not a long-drawn out analysis of the mid-late game, this is a fast and effective counter-attack designed to win games quickly or at least set you up with an advantage (after killing all terran scvs), at which point you can move into 2base play.


Wednesday, October 5, 2011

StimmedProbe’s Million Man Marine TvP Style

General Idea

Marines are strong, very strong. Marines are cheap, very cheap. Marines rip apart every Protoss unit and only run into problems against Colossus and High Templars. The main idea is that you always keep the Colossus count low (low as in 1 or none) and you never give them enough time to tech to High Templars. A fast expansion allows you to support 10+ Barracks and the map will soon look like a river of dots traveling across the screen. After a few back and forth fights you will eventually overpower your opponent’s army with your million man marine army and force him to GG.


iEchoic's 2 Factory 2 Startport Build

Overview

This build utilizes two fast factories and then two fast starports. Infernal pre-igniter is researched as soon as possible. Fast 2 factories gives you a powerful early aggression-stopper (vs marines and hellions), and gives you map control.

A fast medivac is created to give a counter-attack and economic damage threat. This is a hard-counter to rushed cloaked banshees + bunker at front.

Spanishiwa's No Gas Fast expand Zerg vs Any Race

The build revolves around a few key ideas:

1: that in the early game larva is extremely important, and having to produce units from that limited larva (instead of drones) is very disadvantageous to you.
2: that by delaying your gas you're able to drone extremely quickly. This is because your income won't be split between gas/mineral income (it will be all mineral), and thus you're able to get drones quicker than you'd normally be able to.
3: that creep spread increases the effectiveness of Zerg by a LOT. To the point where it is extremely worth it to spend in-game resources to expedite the process of spreading creep.
4: that mid and late game Zerg is very strong (compared to early game Zerg).
5: that over saturating is terrible (like, terrible terrible).

Mothership / 6 Gate build

The Backstory

Fast expand and its variants have started to come under some scrutiny with the success of stargate play twindling. Zergs have learned how to fend off the 6gate blink stalker timing as well as the VR-Stargate units type builds while powering economy and ending up way ahead. I personally preferred the 6gate after expanding, but ling heavy play started to dominate me.

Terran vs Protoss - Uncle Dolan's Mech Build

I thought I'd share this build with you that I've been using at the Masters level to get like a 90%+ win rate vs Protoss. I was like the common Terran before, using MMM + vikings + ghosts to deal with the Protoss deathball and constantly loosing. Therefore I went into my lab and concocted this mad scheme to use Mech vs Protoss. Most Terrans scoff at the idea, but hold your judgement! I have a 90%+ win rate vs Protoss or a reason

Shout Outs

Thorzain - Because the build is basically based off of his TvP style in game 5 vs MC in the TSL
MarineKush - For giving me the idea to EMP my own mech units
Zatic - For the opening
Warden - For well... having an awesome stream!

Protoss vs Terran 1 Gate Fast expand Variations

The first version of this guide will outline the timings and give a few example replays.

1 Gate 1 Gas FE (As done by oGs.MC)

The Build Order
9 Pylon
12 Gateway [1]
14 Gas [1]
15 Pylon
17 Cybercore
18 Zealot
22 Warpgate Research and Stalker
24 Pylon
Stalker
30 Nexus (29 if scout died)
-If he did not expand: Cut Probes [Should have 16+3 on minerals, 3 on gas, and 1 scout]
2x Gateway
Robo (Make an Observer when done and rally to enemy base)
Pylon
Gas

For Terrans struggling in or getting into Diamond League

These exercises are designed for fast and effective learning, keeping you focused, and improving your abilities as quickly as possible. Each one is a short overview followed by an exercise.

Exercises

Analyze a build for micro gaps


Anyone can tell you how to analyze a build to find a more efficient order.

HUARGH's Zerg vs Protoss Mothership build

The basic build order and opening:
You should not have an idle nexus. Prioritize building probes and obviously create a gateway + cybernetics core wall at your choke. This will be the build you are going to use against nearly everything the zerg is doing, save 1base cheesy play (roach rush, 7pool, ...,).

• 9pylon, scout with pylon builder, chrono nexus twice after pylon is done
• 14gate
• 15gas, your 3rd chronoboost should be coming up right now - use it on your nexus
• 17pylon, you will not get supply blocked

Terran vs Terran - Bio guide

Overview/Gameplan

What we are going to try and do in the games when we are going for bio is of course to win (just like any other strategy). How do we accomplish this? Our gameplan should be to keep one thing in mind: Aggression. We cannot sit back and relax and expect to win with bio. Multi-pronged attacks are key. Dropping in several places at once while attacking the front. So to sum it up: constantly pressuring and picking off buildings or tanks, and dropping.

Protoss vs Protoss anti 4-gate build

The following are the metrics that I use:
Difficulty of execution: Is this build difficult to learn? Do you have to execute perfectly? Out of 10.
Probes at 5:45: Self explanatory
Required number of sentries: You generally want 0 or 1 sentries if possible.
2nd gas timing: 3 probes mine ~112 gas per minute, so you can calculate how much extra gas you will have with different builds via this metric.
Wall?: Indicates if the build requires a wall or not. Walls are generally not preferable in PvP and you want to avoid them if possible.
Does it look like an offensive 4 gate?: If it looks like an offensive 4 gate, you
may force your oppenent to play less greedy.
How much does a gas steal hurt?: Early gas build cannot get gas stolen. On the other hand, some builds have difficulty dealing with gas steals. Out of 10.
Excess gas: Compared to a defensive 4 gate that gets gas at 6:00, how much extra gas does this build have? Does not include gas spent on sentries.


Guide to playing starcraft 2 with Low APM

If you are a player who has few or no limitations on your APM, many of these suggestions will harm your play more than help. You should always try to increase and utilize all forms of micro and not limit your macro. Aspects of awareness and strategy are applicable to all players, and should be studied when not playing the game. Players who CAN increase their APM SHOULD, but the actions are only as effective as the premise that drives them. Do not use this guide as an excuse to limit yourself. Please only use it to expand your skill to, and perhaps beyond your limitations.