Back in Diamond for Season 6

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Season 6 of ladder play has begun, and so have I. I just played 2 quick games, both of which went pretty well. The first ZvZ went along smoothly without any Zergling/Baneling play at the beginning. Transitioned into Roach/Infestor and rode that to victory. The second game was ZvT, where he tried some elevator play with Marines and Hellions, but I had plenty of Zerglings to deal with it. He made a few other mistakes (leaving Tanks unsieged and undefended), and a large flock of Mutas convinced him to tap out.

Watching the replays, my macro was not very good in either of them. Now that I’ve learned about the macro hatch, I’m getting a lot of larva, but I’m also not spending them. This happens sometimes from being supply blocked, but in general, I’m just not checking them often enough, so my supply and money go up and down, roughly in sync with when I’m injecting. Day[9] talks about the mental checklist of “making pylons, making probes”. I guess without specific production buildings, I need to do a better job constantly keeping my money low and building things.

I think it’s pretty popular for Zergs to want to work on never missing an inject: I think I might get to that only after I remember to use the larva I already have.

Transitioning into mid-game ZvZ

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ZvZ has quickly become my least favorite matchup as it’s by far the most stressful. You can develop big advantages and disadvantages within the first few minutes in Zergling/Baneling engagements from things as little as looking away to macro and coming back to see a baneling pop in the middle of everything. Personally, my hope is just to get out of the early game not tremendously behind, but that is difficult.

One reason why is that I’ve found that a lot of Zerg are pretty greedy and go hatch first in ZvZ. And at my level, it’s really hard to avoid losing outright to Zergling/Baneling aggresion. I played 3 games at lunchtime, and in both ZvZ games, my opponent went hatch first, so to avoid falling behind with my 14 gas 14 pool opening, I went for it. In both, I managed to kill the hatchery, but the rest unfolded very differently.

In the first, I expended a lot, but managed to destroy his expo. I tried to expand behind it, but I forgot the bit where he needed to build up a lot to fend off my aggression. I wasn’t properly prepared, and he sniped it without me canceling. At that point, I was pretty flustered, fell way behind, and soon lost.

In the second, I managed to destroy his expo, then immediately fell back with my own expo and into a defensive position. He tried to go for a big roach push soon after, but since I was playing defensively (knowing I had my expo up for longer), I fended it off easily and got the win later on.

There were many other lessons along the way, but I was particularly glad to see that I had instantly learned from the previous game and managed to make the adjustment. Hopefully I can keep it up: both today and yesterday, I have played 3 ladder games, going 3-3 over the span of them. I think Day[9] offered the New Year’s Resolution to play 3 ladder games everyday. I laughed it off given my typical schedule, but given how often I peek in to watch a full game on a stream, I probably have the time for it. I’ll of course keep you updated here.

The Macro Hatch is not to be underestimated

I once read somewhere (probably reddit), “I’ve never built a macro hatch and later regretted it.” I’m now a believer.

I’m traveling at the moment, and the best thing to do on planes and in the airport is to practice SC2 against the computer. I usually play against “very hard” and don’t have any problems, but today, in either my first or second game, I played a ZvT and lost. So I played the matchup again and was close to losing. Basically, the computer comes with a marine/marauder push around 6 minutes, then comes again around 9 minutes. I usually barely fend off the first attack with my 14 gas 14 pool 20 hatch opening, but I was taking a lot of damage. The 2nd attack was the real kicker as I would just be settling into my economy when it came.

I tried defending with banelings for the 2nd push, which worked well enough, but I felt like it was very early to be committing so much into it. After losing one 4-5 games in, I figured I needed a different approach. That time, I dropped a macro hatch right around 7 minutes. I can’t understate how much of a difference it made.

In the 2 games I played with the macro hatch, I just had more stuff. More drones, more zerglings, more money. I could tech faster while keeping a high zergling count for defense. Instead of trying to scrape together a defense for the 3rd push, I was desperately trying to keep my money low and oversaturated my main and natural expansion while getting ready for a counter.

I’ll need to play around with the timings on the macro hatch, since I have now only played about 4 games with it. Regardless of where it ends up in my builds, it’s a good reminder about how important of a resource larva are to Zerg.

Fun fact about my APM from Sc2gears

I installed Sc2gears a few days ago and took a look at the motley assortment of replays I have actually saved. I’ll be saving all of them now going forward, but for right now, there’s not much to look at. I’ll let you know if I learn anything important from my play.

Here’s one thing I did notice, though: APMs over time. APM (actions per minute) isn’t a perfect metric for how good someone is, but it’s okay. It’s not as important as some learners would suggest, and it’s not as useless as some pros would suggest. Fun facts about me, though.

I have a couple games from over a year ago. Back then, my average APM was 74, with an EAPM (effective APM: remove redundant clicks) was 61. Not great.

I played 2 games in the airport as I was flying back to the west coast for classes. That was at the end of my big spurt over break. My APM was 125 with an EAPM of 103.

I played 2 right after installing Sc2gears. My APM is at 114 with an EAPM of 91.

For what it’s worth, both games I played today were against the computer, 1 of which I let drag on for awhile at the end while I went for broodlords when I could have just won. Even so, both of the games at the airport were also against the computer.

Clearly even 3 weeks of inconsistent playing can be a drag.

Working with Ultralisks

“I go ultras when I’m really far ahead and I want to lose”

– Destiny

Since FruitDealer in GSL1, ultralisks have been a really sad story for Zerg. I don’t think I’ve ever seriously built them, and I haven’t been impressed with them in pro play. I just caught Jjakji v. Nerchio on Daybreak in the IPL Fight Club (game 5, maybe?), where Nerchio stuck with ling/infestor/ultralisk, and it was very sad.

The commentators really hit the point correctly in that ultralisks don’t work on a map with narrow paths: they block each other too much, and lings can’t slide by either. Jjakji really compounded the problem by building Orbital Commands and PFs everywhere to further constrain movement. Instead, Nerchio had to fight up ramps, through chokes, and into sniping ghosts and the mass of the Terran army.

Another problem I noticed, in this game and the last one on Shattered Temple, was that Jjakji was always retaining his medivac count. When Artosis was streaming and reviewing his play during the holiday season, he really focused on the point of chasing down and killing medivacs after engagements. Marines and marauders are comparatively cheap to medivacs: make Terran players rebuild those medivacs and tighten them up on gas a little bit. It was just sad to see double fungals go off on huge clumps of marines and fail to kill any of them because 8 medivacs were ready to heal them up.

What does give me hope is Zerg using better mobility in these circumstances. One thing Nerchio did really well was small ling counter-attacks and run-bys, and he actually cleared out Jjakji’s buildings in his main. That sort of mobility, from the speed of units, overlord drops, or nydus play, can help Zerg avoid those unfavorable engagements in the middle.

The best inspiration about this type of play comes from Mystic, who pulls Chita in every direction in this ZvP on Metalopolis. He can be everywhere at once, dodging the Protoss death ball and saving units by retreating into Nydus Worms. The game is a little old, but it’s truly phenomenal and was an early inspiration for me on how cool Nydus play can be.

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Casted by HD




Laddering 2v2

My vacation is over: I just played 5 ladder games. Admittedly, they were just 2v2s with Julie, but they, on the whole, went very well. We managed to go 4-1 in placement and are a platinum-level 2v2 team! Here’s the rundown and replays:

  1. (replay) These guys were idiots. They both floated to the gold, and with just a few zerglings, they were out of the game.
  2. (replay) Sadly, the only game we lost. We had a pretty big advantage with a good engagement at the beginning, but a few mutas took out a bunch
  3. (replay) Also idiots. They were double zerg, so I went 10 pool to be safe, but then they went infestors and nydus. They had no chance.
  4. (replay) The best played game of the bunch. They (double terran) had an early contain on us, but we managed to break it. I tried to muta harass, but they had a ton of turrets everywhere. Fortunately, we managed to put together a really good composition of banelings and the protoss deathball, kept them on 2-3 bases, and eventually won.
  5. (replay) I’m not tremendously proud of this game, but we did a roach/4 gate all-in, and it worked. Had I gone lings, we would’ve been in trouble, but fortunately, one guy was teching to templar, and the other had a bunch of hellions. Pretty simply done.

Personally, my play wasn’t great. I wasn’t macroing well, missing creep spread, didn’t have my tech going, etc. I think there’s a lot to work on. One nice thing that did come out of it, though, is that I’ve realized I’m more comfortable with 1s now instead of multiplayer games. What I think that means is that I’ve finally developed enough of an understanding of strategy that I know how to react and how to play through a 1v1, instead of just mucking around in big games.

Regardless, I’m happy we got into platinum and very proud of how Julie played. I guess the vs. A.I. days are behind us now, as we ladder and keep progressing that way.

Just a little rusty

I played 3 games last night after being off for 2 weeks, and it was a little rough. Julie and I play 2v2s together against the computer and can usually win against the “very hard” A.I. Last night, however, was harder than usual as I worked to get my fingers back underneath me. I was able to immediately setup into my new control group setup, but everything else was worse. I made a few poor decisions (not getting defense in time, teching too slowly) and couldn’t macro as well (missing injects, not spreading creep, and such). I wasn’t quite as sharp as I was right when I left, but I was still better than I was at the beginning of my winter break, which was a plus.

The most interesting change was coming back to my normal setup. While on break, I was playing on my physical Macbook Pro, with the built-in keyboard and 15-inch screen, and a portable optical mouse. My actual setup is a separate keyboard, 23-inch screen, and heavier optimal mouse. It was a little disorienting but ultimately not too much of a problem. I’ll readapt as I work the rest of mechanics up.

Stephano’s muta-less ZvT

My Starcraft separation continues amidst other things in life, but I did get to watch 2 or 3 games from the SHOUTcraft Invitational 4 finals this weekend between Stephano (Z) and Thorzain (T). My opinion of Thorzain goes up and down, but he has already participated in one of the best ZvT finals I’ve ever watched against DRG in the Dreamhack Valencia finals (VODs here). That series was traditional Marine-Medivac-Tank against Ling-Baneling-Muta and really showed how back and forth it could be.

The Stephano-Thorzain series (VODs here), however, shows how Stephano completely blows that matchup apart. Best I could tell, Thorzain played it by the book: early hellion pressure while expanding, transition into marine-tank with some early pressure, and then into the midgame. Stephano completely crushed this by going for a ling-infestor composition with a lot of lings early. This did a few things for him:

  • the tank count never got very high because Stephano had so many lings out. When the first push came, he just kept pumping lings. Without a sufficient number of tanks, Thorzain was always vulnerable
  • to make them less vulnerable and more effective, Thorzain spread his tanks. When he did this, Stephano used Infested Terran bombs to have the tanks splash and kill themselves
  • with low tank counts, Thorzain’s marines were vulnerable to fungals and banelings, and that completely opened up the game
  • since Stephano had the infestation pit and not a particularly heavy commitment to the midgame, he got Hive quickly and started tier 3 before Thorzain could really ever build his perfect composition

SC2NoobSchool appears to have a tutorial about this style, though I admittedly haven’t watched it myself. I’m not really sure how terran is expected to deal with this, as Thorzain even stuck by hellions a little longer in a few games, to no avail, as the ridiculous ling count always got a surround.

We’ll see how popular this style gets as we get back into tournament season.

Doing some cross-training in Azeroth

I haven’t played any SC2 in about a week now, but I have managed to squeeze in some of the campaign from The Frozen Throne. I had played Reign of Chaos a long time ago but never got TFT, so I’m just completing my Blizzard experience. I figured all of my Starcraft experience would make it much easier, and I could just crash through it. I was so wrong.

The campaign on hard has been pretty difficult for me. A large part of my difficulty is that I still haven’t learned the interactions between types of attack and armor. I actually haven’t even really figured out how much damage units deal and how many hit points they have. I mostly play by instinct, try to form balanced armies, and mass up for big pushes. It doesn’t work well.

Warcraft is clearly a very different sort of game, and I can’t quite wrap my head around it. Worse, it’s revealing my poor micro control as I can’t keep up with all of the spells I need to use while pulling units back and target firing. That problem is probably exacerbated by me not really knowing what’s effective.

In any case, I’m undeterred. I don’t know how to play any differently, so until then, I’ll just rely heavily on auto-saves and the knowledge that I’m making steady, if slow, progress, and that I’ll be done soon enough.