Back from Hiatus #2

Game 1 : http://replayfu.com/download/mBz1Hj
Game 2 : http://replayfu.com/download/1C9dDc
Game 3 : http://replayfu.com/download/nwGKpd

Bored / not feeling great so playing some sc2, decided to pop the blog back up for learning purposes mostly.
Three ZvPs, earlier today I went by my good friend 'remontoire's house and he was watching a few sc2 vods. He was watching slush and some other guy that wasn't great (his play felt like a more intelligent version of mine.. all over the place and without rigorous reasoning behind his decisions) but thats fine, it was slush's play that rem pointed something cool out about. Something I tried to do these games although its hard when you give it a go before planning it out.

The idea: 'Saturate' each base, but only to 16 drones on minerals.

It seems like a small thing but the way rem talked about it made me feel like is really is so much more "crisp" to put it in his words. In each of these 3 games there was many problems in my play. poor scouting, poor injects, poor creep spread, getting supply blocked but all of these will go in time as I focus on them one by one. To keep the overall strategy the same and practice it is important though and that is what I tried to do in these games.

a - expand safely
b - get lings
c - get mutas and banelings

There is much to be added still but these are the 3 things I want to do most of all.
Quick run down of game with emphasis on anything interesting (sorry if you don't find it interesting)

Game 1 : Entombed Valley
Classic annoying protoss thing to do.. try to cannon my nat (15hatch). Pushed off three base with stalker/colossus/zealot/stalker.. I almost held it off but didn't quite. No matter, nothing really interesting except that it 'felt' a little better in terms of making units because of the way I droned but this might just be confirmation bias so on to game 2.

Game 2 : Antiga Shipyard
Classic annoying protoss thing to do x 2.. try to cannon my nat.. again. Not interesting.
Interesting: the game went pretty much stereotypically. he forge fe'd, i took a 3rd etc.., however because I only put 16drones per mineral line (+6 for gas when needed ofc) I started producing lings a lot earlier. my mutas were delayed only for my bad playing but point is, when it came to a fight (i think at 13mins) after i did some harassment, his zealot/colossus/stalker/sentry ball melted to banelings/lings. reinforcement lings + mutas led to the gg.

Game 3 : Antiga Shipyard
Before he had a chance I had a whinge at him about the cannon thing and he didn't do it this time... but before you conclude that hes a learner. It wasn't because he realised they are annoying and don't work unless well executed or I screw up. It was because he went fast robo, saw it with a ling really early. A few immortals and what felt like a very long amount of time later his warp prism? arrives to some lings and queens. He doesn't get to use it very well, and I counter attack with lings (morphed them into banes at his door and broke some things then sent more lings). He had no choice but to push at around 13mins off one base (i was on 2 heading to 3) but mutas popped and cleaned up.
Interesting: The 16 drones left me feeling like I knew exactly when to start producing instead of guessing, and at the same time my econ was strong enough to counter attack and hold off an attack.

I'll keep playing it while trying to improve other mechanics and post up a few more of these when theres time.

Back.. again!

Its been ages, life circumstances put me on break so long I forgot about this blog haha, so soon I'm going to do this whole 200gc thing again, a few other people have done it, I'll link to their things if I find them. After my last exam I'm putting together a new pc and starting this thing again so it'll likely be next month that it begins but while all the replays will be posted, I will only write about the ones I considered note-worthy or exciting. On that chord, I'd like to say it feels like ZvZ can be played using almost only infestor-ling although I do need to test it against decent players! so far I've been playing around with my mechanics during study-breaks.
Start checking the blog out next month :) (thanks to requisition for reminding me about the blog)


For myself -
Need to work on those queen sprays averaging
Avg apm - 101 in-game, reduce useless clicks and increase queen sprays!
16-hatch
16-gas
16-pool
3-1 vs P
5-3 vs T
2-5 vs Z

w/l -
83% vs P
42% vs Z
70% vs T
avg = 65%
---

baneling cheese vs all races

I'm lazy as balls, you know how it is.. commit to something then never do it!
Just played in my first sc2 tournament! Cityhunter in Sydney, Australia held a small 32 player event.. got to talk to a lot of people who were very into the game :D
The tournament winner, a zerg, was playing very well and mentioned some anti-protoss cheeses he does although he gave no specifics, so I decided I should start figuring some out.
The idea is to take a very specific build order that aims to win the game outright against any one or all of the races.
First I decided to use a baneling bust, as of writing this I've only tried it twice but will continue to update as I try it. (right now being used in platinum league, as I climb up to Diamond its holes should start being more obvious)
I made no attempt at hiding anything -
My pool went down at 1:30 against the protoss in attempt 2, seconds before his 11gate
At ~ 2:30 his 2nd gate goes down (12 supply) just after his probe has found my base but gained no information. pool and gas both finished, he sees 12 drones mining and 2 on gas
chronoboosts his first zealot, started at 2:50 or so, probably thinking I'll have lings on him at any moment
He puts down his cyber at around 3:40, 19 food, staying 1 gas. My overlord sees all of this, giving me hope that this build will work.
Boost begins at 3:35 or so, an important time to note because that means speedlings won't be up till 4:25, 20 seconds after banelings!
Chronoboost is on warpgate tech while a stalker and sentry are under production at 5mins
My attack hit at exactly 6:00, 6 banelings and 12 lings at his door, followed by 10 more lings that had just hatched in base.
his late forcefield did cause him to lose this as well as all the other timing issues (he put down a 3rd gate to finish with the warpgate tech, it felt like a 4gate, but horribly executed)
Will put up more information later then hopefully organise it into something useful :)

10  Overlord
10  SpawningPool
11  Extractor
14  +1 Drone on gas 14  +1 Drone on gas
15  Queen
17  +1 Drone on gas 18  Overlord
18  MetabolicBoost
18  Zergling
19  Overlord
19  Zergling
20  BanelingNest
19  Zergling
20  Zergling
21  Zergling
22  Zergling
23  Zergling
24  Zergling
25  Zergling
26  Zergling
27  Zergling
28  Baneling
28  Baneling
28  Baneling
28  Baneling
28  Baneling

Analysis v Complaining

So remontoir just told me to go fuck myself, then told me to go analyze my last bunch of games seeing as they are vs high diamonds.. so lets do some analysis instead of complaining : )

6 Pool!

My good friend Remontoir were playing with timings on lost temple, among the tests I 6pooled a bunch of times and he 15hatched. We discovered the following:
If your starting positions are the closest positions by air, the 15 hatch will see the 6pool in time to change builds and place a pool - Win

What is interesting, atleast in my view, is that in the closest ground position on lost temple the 6 pool fails if it is scouted by an overlord and the opponent cancels the hatch, drops a pool and makes more drones - the initial lings need to be 'hunted' though.

If anyone has played with 6pool timings vs 15 hatch on other maps please comment a replay or some info on it, at the moment it feels like the 6pool is only going to work if you drone all-in with it

72 - 283

Well, a lot has happened since Feb 1 but I have not cut down on SC2 at all, quite the contrary ;) 209 games have been played in the last 18 days.
When this blog was started I had the goal of improving my game by putting atleast a minimum of thought into my games... instead what happened was I took my pc to my mates house and played a LOT of games.

Starting Stats:
1878 Point Diamond
156W : 150L = 1.04 W:L or 50.98% Wins

Last Stats:
2497 Point Diamond
197W : 181L = 1.0884 W:L or 52.12% Wins

Current Stats:

3134 Point Diamond
311W :  278L = 1.18705 or 52.80% Wins

Since started, 283 games have been played gaining me 1256 points which is like 4.5 points a game (goddamnit!)
* In the last 25 games (the games I played on the 18th up till right now) my win rate has been 70% :)
However, bullshit aside, I feel I have gotten a hell of a lot better, apm has stayed in the same range but my control has increased, my macro although still horrible has developed quite a bit and more importantly, bullshit cheeses are working less and less. + I caught up to my mate finally :D infact at the time of writing this I'm a few points ahead!

So now that I've played 200 games and failed to blog each one this blog is going to be repurposed to express my thoughts on what the matchups are doing.

1 - Fuck you protoss! Sick of this void ray colossus 2base shit you guys pull. stop that.

Game 36 - 72 - Eval

Sitting at my good friends house playing SC2 quite a bit, these 36 games were played on the nights between the 31st / 1st and the 1st / 2nd.


My average apm for the first 6 games was ~ 90, for the last 6 games was ~107 :D!


Game 36 L  - ZvP
Game 37 W - ZvZ
Game 38 L  - ZvP
Game 39 L  - ZvZ
Game 40 L  - ZvZ
Game 41 L  - ZvT
Game 42 L  - ZvT
Game 43 W - ZvZ
Game 44 W - ZvZ
Game 45 W - ZvP
Game 46 W - ZvP
Game 47 W - ZvT
Game 48 W - ZvP
Game 49 L  - ZvT
Game 50 W - ZvZ
Game 51 W - ZvP
Game 52 L  - ZvZ
Game 53 W - ZvZ
Game 54 L  - ZvT
Game 55 W - ZvT
Game 56 W - ZvP
Game 57 L  - ZvT
Game 58 W - ZvP
Game 59 W - ZvP
Game 60 L  - ZvZ
Game 61 W - ZvT
Game 62 W - ZvT
Game 63 L  - ZvT
Game 64 W - ZvT
Game 65 L - ZvP
Game 66 L - ZvZ
Game 67 L - ZvP
Game 68 W - ZvZ
Game 69 W - ZvP
Game 70 L - ZvT
Game 71 W - ZvT
Game 72 L - ZvP


37 games, 17 losses, 20wins
-----------------
Starting Stats:
1878 Point Diamond
156W : 150L = 1.04 W:L or 50.98% Wins

Last Eval Stats:

2126 Point Diamond
171W : 160L = 1.06875 W:L or 51.66% Wins

This Evaluation: (as of game 72 instead of 50)

2497 Point Diamond
197W : 181L = 1.0884 W:L or 52.12% Wins