I love analyzing the details of professional matches and all of the little things they do. That, unfortunately, isn’t something that most of us can do on a regular basis. Most of the games I lose are because I either didn’t scout to know what to react to, or I just didn’t know what my own plan was and fell behind on macro. And it’s mostly the latter. So I wrote up these guides.

For each race, I have a writeup for dealing with each matchup. Specifically, I’ll outline where most games usually go and how to deal with that. Then, I’ll provide 2 or 3 basic build orders for you to get to the mid-game safely.

These builds are intended for lower-level players, but I expect that you should know everything in the “Getting into StarCraft” guide. This includes:

1. How to read a build order
2. What all of the units are
3. How to assign control groups and hotkeys for production

These builds are all at least vetted for Heart of the Swarm (HotS). I also will be maintaining these posts over times so that they remain relevant as patches come in, the metagame shifts, and play is refined.

So, here they are:

• Basic Protoss Strategy and Build Orders
• Basic Terran Strategy and Build Orders
• Basic Zerg Strategy and Build Orders

And remember, the best way to learn how to play StarCraft and improve is to hit “Matchmaking” then “Play”.