Last few Days...

The last few days I've been trying to get back into multi-player. I have been a little wary to get back into it largely due to having unreliable internet and computer at home. I decided to go for it.

Ive played 6 games in 2 days and won 4. I am really proud of myself :) I lost my first one and almost gave up for the night, but I kept my determination up knowing that if I lose again I probably will stop for the night. I had botched my my first games' build order up so I had it coming.

I fended off the dreaded Zergling rush and a 2 gateway cheese in my own base. By far the most entertaining match was against a Terran where I catch him completely off guard and annihilate his MMM ball with 4 tanks without him even shooting at me. And no I didn't use air units, I used Zealots and Stalkers. It was completely intentional and I kept in mind what my opponent was thinking the whole time instead of what I needed to be doing. I waited until he commanded his troops to move while not in siege mode, little did I know, he told them to move and not attack move! It was a lucky break and I quickly finished him off. I am going to be doing a post about it soon analyzing what I did and why I did it, and why it worked.

A Before and After

Today I’m going to show an example of what happened when I switched from my old standard Bronze and Silver league level of play into what I do know. This first replay is one of my first Placement matches after Starcraft 2 went live. It’s not a reenactment, it’s the real deal. I did make that many mistakes. Feel free to point them out! Here.

As you watch, I want you to notice what I have at the 7 minute mark. My resources, units, supply, and buildings are all being built on this strategy I had which was, I dont want to lose. So you can clearly see as the replay goes on, I did not have a plan. I knew I wanted some Zealots and some Stalkers, but beyond that, I was just going to wing it.

Probably my first mistake was canceling that pylon and letting the Zerglings in, I thought I could handle it, but I underestimated how easily those small units can fit into small places. Not having enough zealots to fight them did not help either, or the fact I used the nervous “OMG PROBES ATTACK!” strategy. But I’m happy with the way the match turned out. I learned a bit about Zergling rushes and the limits of Zealots.

Now here is a replay of another match I was in a few days ago.

Watch what I have around 7 minutes. I have a surplus of minerals and my first expansion came a bit later than I wanted due to me not breaking the rocks early enough. But I have substantially more at this point than I did vs. xnscone. My APM also did not change. I just began remembering what I had to do, and I’ll admit, it still isn’t perfect. Currently I’m working on improving my build by not stopping to build, or preventing myself from suddenly noticing that I have an excess minerals and quickly move to warp in 3 buildings at once. If I have to warp that many in at once, I wasn’t paying attention to my resource/supply tracker. Ultimately that’s what having these fast reliable builds is. 


We all need to get ourselves in the habit of staring at that resource supply tracker every few seconds, it’s essential. Think of it like this, when you’re driving, your should be looking at all your mirrors every few seconds, but more people only look at them when they want to change lanes etc. But if you need to change lanes suddenly to avoid an accident and you didn’t know there was a car in your blind spot, then you’re going to get into an accident anyway. It is the same with constantly looking at your resource/supply tracker, if you don’t watch it you can potentially lose a match.

Next time I am going to talk about some little tricks you can do with casters(and some you thought you could but can't). I am also going to highlight a few casters who do so well in certain match ups, you would be a fool to try to incorporate getting a few in your build.