Terraria has stolen my soul!

I just can't e arsed play SC2 tonight, becaue I just bought Terraria, and I haven't stopped playing since.
It's just bloody addictive.

I'll try to make up for it tomorrow.


~Yoh

3rd & 4th Bronze match - 14 July, 2011.

Had two matches today to make up for not playing yesterday.
Even still, I walked all over both my opponents.


My first opponent of the night was a Terran called Audi.
He fancied himself a gold player, and I believe him. First opponent that could actually macro..... well, somewhat.

I did my usual early expand and scout.
Saw he wasn't being aggressive, so I went ahead and macroed, got some roaches and knocked down my back door expo's rocks and took an early 3rd.

What I didn't know is that he had already done so and had taken it as is natural expo.
Good on him.

"Clever girl."

He eventually made a push with a rather decent size force of Marines and Marauders, which I saw a mile away and added a good lot of Hydras to my Roach and Queen ball.
When he got to my backyard, I ate him alive, but he had the good sense to pull back with what he had left.

"Fighting a Zerg on his own turf? Good luck with that."

I then setup for a drop, got more Hydras, and took two more bases just in case.
I quickly hit max and made a final two pronged attack, first pushing a bunch of Hydras toward is 3rd and engaged his forces, but with 2+2 upgrades, my Hydras dominated.
In the mean time my drop began to ravage his base, to which he tapped out.

At least he put up a fight.

"Faint with the left...."

"......knock his teeth out with the right."

My second opponent was a Protoss called illuminatiBP, and man did he suck.
Pro tip, don't try to get every tech tree option. When I finally got in his base he had a little bit of everything, but no where near enough to spend his money.

"Agh, what a mess."

I early expoed and scouted, and saw yet another fast forge..... what is is with Protoss and their early forge? Well, he use it to get 4 cannons and fast expo.

"Kind of a dead giveaway, isn't it?"

So I just took a 3rd because I knew he could do a damn thing about it.

"Safest expo I've ever taken."

Went straight for Mass Hydras and drop tech, and took 2 more expos.
Had a feeling he was doing DT's so I got an overseer and some Spore Crawlers.

"Hydras give great hugs."

I dropped in the back of his base and tore him a new asshole.
And he had virtually nothing to fight with but a couple of DT's..... which died very quickly.
The few Voidrays he had went straight for my Hive, but I called back a few Hydras and transfused it to keep it alive. The voids dropped, and he tapped out.

The moral of this story? Don't early expo if you don't build any production in order to spend you 3K worth of minerals.


ps: click the names for the replays.

~Yoh

My Strategy for the Bronze League.

Since I'm in Bronze, and thus I'm directing this towards other Bronze players, I think it would be a good idea explaining what my strategy for winning in Bronze is.

.
.
.
.
Macro.


That's it, really that's all it takes.
The problem with 95% of Bronze players, is that they just can't macro very well, and this cripples their ability to do really much of anything.
So when they go up against someone like me, who is fairly decent at macroing my little heart out, they can't hope to produce the shear number of units that I can field.
And so they get crushed effortlessly.


So, how do you macro?

It's pretty easy, just follow these steps.

1: Don't supply block yourself. Meaning always build more supply long before you hit the supply cap. Don't worry too much about over producing supply until you get a hang of it.

2:Produce workers consistently. Unless your gearing up for a big attack, your CC/Nexus's/Hatchieres should be build more workers at every moment in time until your mineral line is saturated. Try not to cue, but it's still better then not building at all.

3: SATURATE YOUR BLOODY MINERAL LINES! This is by far the most common macro problem I see in Bronze. Mineral lines with maybe 10 or 15 workers on them...... no wonder your broke. A saturated mineral line is 18-21 workers, not including gas.

4: Expand early and often. Zerg can afford to expand right off the bat at 15 on most maps, if not at least within the first 5mins of a game. Terran and Protoss do have early expo builds, but they are generally safer on one base, but they should expand within the first 10mins of the game.
If you can afford to get an expo, get an expo.

5: Hotkey your structures, and use your damn hotkeys. If you want to macro well, you have to use hotkeys, no way around it. Learn what the hotkeys are for your race, and use them.


That's the basic gist of it. Fortunately all of this can be learned from practicing against the computer, or thru the singleplayer campaign.
It just takes practice, and soon enough it because quite natural to be producing a ton of stuff, and your APM will also naturally increase.

If you learn to macro well, you will roll 95% of your Bronze player opponents, regardless what unit or strategy you use.


~Yoh

Just too damn tired.

I like to play Starcraft 2 regularly, every day if I can.
But writing all day and having a hard day at work, I'm just too fucking tired.

I just want to crawl into a ball and watch Digimon or something.


I'll make up for it by playing double tommorow.

~Yoh

2nd Bronze match - July 12, 2011.

My second match went much like the last one, except my opponent (dimpoTERROR) at least had the balls to make an attack.


I expanded early as usual, he cannon walled himself in, which made me a bit nervous because I thought that he might either try to cannon rush me or go voids or DT's.
But no, he just sucks.

Despite this, I did the usual drone scout on 9/10, followed up with 4 lings when my pool was done.
I grabbed the Xel'Naga tower, put one at his expo, and the other two just outside after poking in.
Feeling safe, I just macroed up and got Roach tech, got to Lair and got Roach speed.


Then I saw him pushing out, and built 4 Spinecrawlers, and built a ton of Roaches.
Of course like all Bronze players, his macro was dreadful, and so I hulk smashed his army effortlessly.
He GG'ed...... and stayed around.

"Your odds don't look too good mate."

So I made a poke with my Roaches while checking all the expos and taking a third, when I saw he had cannoned himself in I just got Overlord drops and dropped in the back of his base and found quite a few Voidrays.... but not nearly enough to stop me from gutting his base, so he made his last ditch attack.... and ran headlong into a bunch of Queens.

"Knock knock, guess who?"

One key point to note is that my instant reaction to smashing his army was not to hastily rush up and kill him, even in this instance I knew full well that I could. I could have lost a lot of forces if I rushed.
My reaction was to get even further ahead by getting an expansion, and denying him his.
In this situation, patience is a virtue. When ahead, get further ahead.

"Gee, you think?"

That's all for this game.
Here's the replay as per usual.


~Yoh

1st Bronze match - July 11, 2011.

I decided right from the get go that I wanted to start in Bronze, and work my way up.
So I forfeited all of my placement matches, and started at the bottom of the barrel.



My 1st match was on Xel'naga Caverns against a Protoss named Tempest.
My strategy was simple, macro, build a lot of Roaches, and maybe a few Infestors, and go kill them.

Oddly the game ended without conflict. He quit as soon as he saw my army, I assume he pissed his pants because he was so far behind.
Not because of anything I did, but because his macro was crap.

"Oh dear! That's a lot of Roaches."

He fast cannon expanded, and he still had fuck all probes.

This is the number one problem I see with every Bronze player.
They can't macro.
They don't build enough workers.
They don't build them regularly.
If they do expand, it's massively late.
They get production late, and never enough.

These all add up quickly, and when they finally push, their army is pitiful.
And as a macroing player, I tend to one sidely smash them when this occurs.

"This is what a mineral line is meant to look like when you expo."

"Ah, probes dude, where are your probes?"

If your new to the game, or just in Bronze, the first thing you MUST master is macro.
Nothing will get you out of Bronze quicker, then just having a ton more crap then the other guy.

Quick tips:

• Saturate you mineral lines ALWAYS! This means get 18-21 workers. (that 2 1/2 rows of workers when selected)

• Gas geysers should have 3 workers on them.

• Build workers all the time until all your mineral lines are saturated.

• If your mineral line is saturated, it's probably time to expand.

• Hotkey your CC's/Nexus's/Hatcheries, as well as your production facilities.

• It's ok to have more production then you need. Too little and your totally fucked.

• In general it's ok to have way too much of something, then not enough.

• Just build a ton of stuff, it's really doesn't matter what.

The way I am going to approach Bronze, is just to show that you can win almost purely through macro alone.
I'm going Roach heavy atm, but I want to mass Queens...... Yes, Queens..... just to prove my point that you can win with anything if you just have lots of them.

Who needs tactics? I have mass Queen.


Here's the replay.
On a side note, I save every single match I have and watch them after the fact, no matter what happens. It's a good habit to have.

~Yoh

4v4, 3v3, and 2v2 play history.

Before getting into 1v1's, I wanted to feel comfortable just playing first.
So I started with 4v4's, then 3v3, and lastly 2v2, before moving onto 1v1.

And even though Day(9) once said this is the order you should start playing Starcraft 2 after the singleplayer, I never really did until World of Tanks 15v15 showed me what a clusterfuck random mutliplayer can be, and how I really don't give a shit anymore.


So I started with 4v4 and played about 10 games or so.
The highlight game I had was the very first which was such a ridiculous game that lasted an hour.


Almost right off the bat two of our allies leave, but I never realized it. Fortunately they both had a good amount of workers plus gas, so me and my last ally got crazy income.
Of coarse I had no way to spend so much money, but I teched quickly to Mutaling and started poking while my ally started getting mass Thor's.

In the end he mopped up with a ton of Thor's while I harrassed most of the time, until I finished them up with mass Ultralisk + Nydus worms.
Replay.


Then I went onto 3v3, playing a dozen games.
I think I had the most fun here, as it didn't feel quite as clusterfuckery as 4v4, or as rush orientated at 2v2.
My highlight game was a simple and straight forward game, where I was given time to macro with an early expo, and after my allies held off an early tank-marine push, we countered and smashed them.


One ally went with mass Mutalisk, the other had a bunch of Stalkers.
I dropped with Mass Queen with a dash of Hydralisk.
Yeah, Mass Queen. And I gutted his base, even when his Stalkers came back to defend.
Queens with transfuse, and a couple of Hydra's are stupidly tough.

Even got a message after the game from one of my allies who thought it was hilarious.
Replay.



Lastly before 1v1, was 2v2....... I really hated 2v2.
Only played 6 games before dropping it like a sack of hammers.
Most of the games ended with pissy little rushes, and I just fucking hate rushes.

The only game of note was where my ally rushed, and hurt the enemy Zerg drone line, before his Protoss ally defended and threw him out. With both the enemy and my allies economy in shambles, I expanded really early and got a butt ton of Lings and Banelings.



I went through the back door and finished off the poor Zerg, which was having a really bad day, and poked at the Protoss before his forcefields forced me to fall back and mass up.
In the mean time I took 2 more expansions.

Then the toss pushed one of my expos, and I just overwhelmed him with pure numbers and crushed his army, and he called it a day.
Replay.


When I was finally sick and tired of multiplayer, I went onto 1v1..... which I'll cover on the next post.

My review, Starcraft 2 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 machups, is really a complete custerfuck.
The game just is not built around it, nor balanced for it. And so rushes are very common, and pure stupidity ensues.
On the bright side, you can do just about any stupid strategy you want and get away with it...... if you don't die within the first 5 minutes of the game that is.

I think I'll stick with 1v1, because at least then I can improve my gameplay.


~Yoh