Trying to play like Stephano

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Replay Here

Like usual, I have managed to over-promise on the amount of free time I have after a major change. So far, I’m 2 weeks out of school and into working full-time, and I think I’ve only managed maybe 2 non-trivial StarCraft play sessions so far. I’m enjoying life quite a bit right now and have managed to do many different things, though I’ll try to stay dedicated to this game as best I can.

This morning, I played the linked game first. It’s a ZvP on Metalopolis, and it went pretty well. I tried out the Stephano style (described in my post here), which involves a quick gasless 3 base opening into spine crawlers in the midgame to get to Brood Lord/Infestor as soon as possible. My opponent opened Gateway first on the high ground, so I didn’t take my third immediately, but I did soon after. Overall, the game went as well as I could’ve hoped: I got to the late game quickly, had my initial, poorly balanced army smashed, fell back to the spine crawlers, and used my huge trust fund to put together the perfectly composed army. In short, it worked.

The game, however, was altogether quite passive. My opponent didn’t really ever put much pressure on me, and I should done a few more run-bys. I think that sort of play is more in my mechanics than the build itself: I just don’t have the multi-tasking and decision-making to execute run-bys along the path of my strategy.

Still, a win is a win, and afterwards, I managed to go 4-1 playing random on random 2v2 ladder. Even better, I won with all 3 races. Playing random and playing multiplayer are both much less stressful than laddering 1v1 Zerg, and I recently have considered playing random again to deal the my ladder anxiety that has largely kept me out of the game for the past 2 weeks. The most important thing, I think, is that I just play more, so we’ll see if I can muster up the will without changing the conditions.

Prioritizing mechanics on the mental checklist

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In Day[9] Daily #345, Day[9] suggests a process for improving mechanics: prioritize it at the top of the mental checklist at the expense of other things, see what it earns you, and slowly assimilate it into regular play. For Zerg, here are a few things I can think of that might work:

  • Creep spread
  • Overlord spread
  • Larva inject (as discussed in the Daily)
  • Expanding every 5 minutes
  • Never supply blocked
  • Army always split into 2 control groups
  • Constantly scouting
  • Keeping minerals below 400 at all times
  • Paying attention to alerts

Stephano late game transition ZvP

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Whenever we’re talking about interesting, innovative Zerg play, it always ends up being about Stephano. A lot of that has to do with his success and the desire to emulate his playstyle, but it does often seem like he’s just ahead of the curve. Particularly, he was asked by Nony on the last State of the Game about what problems he had in ZvP, and his answer: none. In fact, he said that Protoss needed a buff. Who else has ever claimed that their own race was imbalanced?

Anyways, there’s a lot of fascination with his play. I just discovered a new blog, Zergology, which has a really good primer on Stephano’s Roach midgame push ZvP. And Day[9] recently had a Daily about Stephano’s late game transition. I’ll reiterate the main points of that, then throw together the build order from it. But really, you should get it straight from the horse’s mouth first and watch the Daily.

In essence, the plan appears to be to get to late game as soon as possible, which is Brood Lord-Infestor-Spine Crawler. To do that, Stephano just drones for the first 8 minutes (while Protoss is hiding behind a FFE), goes relatively Roach-light in the midgame while getting Spines up early, stays with Infestors, then gets Hive just before the Protoss deathball would hit around 17-19 minutes.

Here are the rough build orders from the 3 games that Day[9] showed:

Stephano ZvP Game 1

  • 16/2:00 Spawning Pool
  • 16/3:00 Hatchery
  • 24/4:30 3rd Hatchery
  • 45/6:00 2 Gas
  • 60/7:00 Lair, Evolution Chamber, Roach Warren (in time for 8:00 Warp Gate)
  • 7:30 Zergling Speed
  • 8:15 starts building an army (16 Zerglings, 5 Roaches)
  • 8:30 3rd & 4th Gas, Roach Speed
  • 9:15 4th Hatchery
  • 9:30 Melee attack upgrade
  • 9:45 Spine Crawlers
  • 10:30: Infestation Pit
  • 11:50: Infestors started, last Roaches built
  • 13:00 Spine Crawlers (in time for 17-19 minute deathball)
  • 15:00 Hive, double Spire

Stephano ZvP Game 2

  • 15/2:00 Spawning Pool
  • 16/3:00 Hatchery
  • 24/4:15 3rd Hatchery
  • 54/6:30 triple Gas
  • 7:00 Roach Warren, Evolution Chamber
  • 8:00 Zergling Speed
  • 8:15 4th Hatchery, +1 Melee Attack
  • 9:00 Roach speed, Spore Crawlers, army started
  • 9:15 Infestation Pit
  • 10:00 10+ Spine Crawlers
  • 13:30 Hive, double Spire
  • 15:00 Corruptors

Stephano ZvP Game 3

  • 15/2:00 Spawning Pool
  • 16/2:50 Hatchery
  • 23/4:20 3rd Hatchery
  • 46/6:00 double Gas
  • 63/7:00 Lair, Roach Warren, Evolution Chamber
  • 70/7:30 3rd Gas, Zergling Speed
  • 70/8:00 army started
  • 100/9:00 +1 Melee attack, 2nd Evolution Chamber, 4th Hatchery
  • 9:30 Roach Speed
  • 10:00 Infestation Pit
  • 10:30 4 Spine Crawlers, no more Roaches
  • 12:00 more Spine Crawlers
  • 14:00 Hive

I think smart players would tell you not to worry too much about the exact build orders, but when you don’t have the time to invent and learn these build orders, it can be hard to understand what other players are doing without something concrete, so hopefully it helps you to learn this style.

One caution, though: Stephano did lose 2-1 ZvP to Inori to get knocked out of the MLG Winter Championship earlier today, and Idra promptly beat Inori 2-0 right after that. I didn’t watch the games, but maybe Stephano doesn’t have the matchup perfectly figured out as he thought.

A new mouse incoming

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I’m on a bit of hiatus right now as I’m headed into my last finals week ever, but a week and a half from now, I’ll be free from classes and hopefully will play a bit more.

As a bonus for that, I just ordered a Logitech G400 to replace my Logitech MX700. You can read more about that process on my main blog, but in any case, I’m looking forward to it. To jump on the bandwagon, I also switched up my mouse settings in Windows according to the consensus best practices. I tried it the other day, and it really screwed with me, but I can see how FPS players care for the extremely precise control. Thankfully, I do regular computing in Mac OS and gaming in Windows, so it isn’t affecting my regular work.

Now anyone can be a StarCraft Master

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If you haven’t heard, Blizzard has released StarCraft Master, a custom map with 30 challenges involving intense micro and knowledge of a few tricks. I beat it yesterday over the course of maybe 2 hours, most of which was spent on scoot-and-shoot and tank-pickup.

My review? It’s a lot of fun and helpful if you’re unaware of a few tricks. I clearly obsessed enough about beating it that I played it over the course of 3 sessions in one day for one of my heavier StarCraft days, though overall, I feel like I didn’t gain much from it. Having watched enough StarCraft, I mostly knew the tricks, and although cool, most of the micro is too intense to be worth the attention except in the most dire of circumstances.

But I definitely recommend it if you have the time. It’s not too stressful, and as important as macro is, I think the coolest and most fun part of StarCraft is the little micro stuff anyways (Brood War pimpest plays anyone?).

If you’re really looking for micro training, though, check out Darglein’s Micro Trainer. It’s generally well-done and a lot of fun to ramp up the difficulty on.

A reminder on why I actually play StarCraft

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I mostly write about learning from watching StarCraft, learning from laddering, and learning from practice, but StarCraft isn’t school: it’s a hobby. And this last Friday, I got a good reminder for why I play.

I gathered 6 of my friends to hop on Battle.net together for a few games, and it was everything I remembered from my Brood War days: way too many technical problems, lots of shenanigans, some generally awful play, but most importantly, a lot of fun. Most of them hadn’t played in awhile (on the scale of weeks since, if not months), but no one I asked turned down the opportunity, so there we were. We played a few 3v3s, a 3-way 2s game, a 3v3 mono-battle (mothership-ghost-marine v. mothership-archon-muta? My team lost hard), and a FFA for about 3 hours of total game time.

We had 4 of us here at my place and 3 playing remotely. When we do it again, I’ll definitely have us all in a Skype call as well so we can taunt each other and joke around without having to deal with Battle.net’s flakiness. In the end, we’re just hanging out anyways.

Assembly Winter 2012 shows how imba Polt is

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Julie and I watched Polt v. Stephano in the ASUS ROG Assembly Winter 2012 finals (replays) over lunch earlier today, and it was pretty phenomenal. Polt managed to win 4-1 after losing the first game, and he was in terrifying positions in each game. From huge Baneling hits in his main base mineral line to Mutas unchecked at an expo where he had dropped all of his MULEs, it felt like he was always on the edge of defeat. Some may interpret the games as a sign of how imbalanced Terran is to come back in situations like that, but I think a better read is that Polt wasn’t quite that far behind, and Polt himself is imba.

I apparently am a fan of Stephano v. Terran series, and this is no exception. He pulled out some new tricks, and I’m still amazed that even though he managed to do pretty much what he wanted in a lot of those games, he still lost. If it were anyone other than Polt, he would’ve had it, but with Tank positioning and Marine splits and target fire like that, there’s not much you can really do.

meanysc2 on reddit made an interesting observation earlier:

one thing I have realized about stephano as I have been watching his ROG games is that he uses his infestor eggs very cleverly. It is widely known that he pops those eggs out to absorb tank fires but there are a lot of times when he just throws 3 out and not attack. I have realized that this is to see how many tanks there are at least in range of the position that the egg is in. You’ll see that he throws the egg in different position of the field. He will only attack when he knows that he has got the right amount of lings to win the push. I’m kind of surprised that none of the casters who have obviously seen more games than me have realized this.

I myself hadn’t noticed this either. I knew about the Tank shots thing (basically, you get to discount 1 round of Tank shots while your Zerglings run in), but the positioning gauge is also interesting. That sort of play is far beyond my own ability to take advantage of, much less perform, but something it’s something to think about.

So congrats to Polt. Although I usually cheer on other Zerg players, Polt was just working so hard in those games. I couldn’t help but be a fan.

My first “real” game

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Replay here

I watch a decent amount of Starcraft and really enjoy it. There are the rushes, the mid-game engagements, and the late-game deathball fights. And for the first time a few minutes ago, I got to experience that myself in the sickest game I’ve played since early beta*.

In short, it was a 35 minute long ZvP involving several near max battles, lots of expansion killing, and my first ever use of Brood Lords on the ladder. Although I’ve never played into the late game before, my excessive Starcraft watching taught me pretty much what to do, and when my 8 or so Brood Lords, 8 or so Infestors, and a bunch of random units beat back his deathball, I knew I had won and got the “GG” seconds later.

Some things went well that game, including early Zerglings in his FE, solid holds, Brood Lord/Infestor play, and Zergling runbys to pick off expansions. Most things didn’t go well that game, including a low worker count early game, bad engagements, upgrades, bad Infestor control (in 2 battles, they ran out in front of my Roaches to all die), slow composition changes (Roaches against Immortals is bad news), and macro (specifically, not spending larva). But in all, it worked out.

Having played through it, I have a lot more respect for the pros. I’ve watched enough that I know what they’re supposed to do, and sometimes, I tell myself that I can do it, too. But deep into a game with my hands shaking, a half-dozen bases, multi-pronged attacks, uncertainty of my opponent’s composition, and constant threat of being crushed, the game is way harder.

My nerves should calm down over time as I get into more of these situations, and I have a lot of lessons from this game. But in any case, I think I’ll be on a high from this game for awhile.

* I wish I had the replay, but it was a TvZ with lots of Thors, Nyduses (Nydi?) in the back of my base, and a bunch of trades

Advice on Arranged 3v3 Ladder

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Just played placement matches with Julie and my friend Jordan, and we went 3-2 to get placed into gold league. I’m pretty happy with that and thought they both played pretty well.

Quick observation: in 3v3, there are 2 main strategies: rushes, and air. In 2 games, we got rushed. In 3 games, we were attacked by air (1 banshee, 1 phoenix, 1 muta). So if you don’t get rushed, get defense in your mineral line soon.