SC2 league thumpings

Starcraft 2 is a fascinating game. Like its predecessor, there are two levels at which the counter system works. The first is what you’d expect: anti-air units counter air units, units with bonus damage to armor counter mechanical units etc. The second is more interesting though - build orders counter one another. Say two players are playing optimally, then from the start of the game there is relatively limited number of game states that can be reached by a certain time. For example, if you fast expanded, and you played optimally so you have no wasted resources, then your army must be smaller than someone who didn’t expand, assuming they instead spent the resources you put into your expansion on growing their army. That means there’s a window of vulnerability in your build that someone who scouts you and notices it can exploit. Similarly, if you can make it to a high threat unit like flying or cloaked units before your opponent can build a counter, then you can do a tonne of damage until the counter comes onto the field, which is another window of vulnerability. SC players call attacks that exploit these windows timing attacks. It’s a concept that doesn’t really exist to the same degree in DoW2 and I find it fascinating.

My builds, however, have thus far been one big protracted window of vulnerability. I feel like I’m getting somewhat more comfortable with my macro, but because I’m playing random I haven’t really had a chance to firm in any particular build orders, so my early games are always kinda slapdash. I’m a long way off doing proper timing attack.

I played another 9 games last night, going 4 wins, 5 losses. 6 games were in my placement matches which unsurprisingly put me into the bronze league. My placement games saw me winning 4 of 6 games. Game 1 was TvZ in which my opponent massed only lings and I crushed him with marines, marauders, and medivacs. Game 2 was ZvP in which my hydra massing failed and I was overrun by a mixed force of zealots, stalker, and sentries. I never even managed to scout his gateways, and I expanded at an inopportune moment. Game 3 was TvT in which we both went marines and siege tanks, but my push reached his doorstep first and I denied him the expansion whilst expanding myself. He managed to reach air, but it wasn’t enough to help him. Game 4 was TvP in which I pulled off a surprisingly effective reaper harass, killing a lot of probes and forcing him to cancel his expansion twice! This prompted him to build a lot of photon cannons, which was good for me because at the same time I teched up to siege tanks and he conceded once they reached his ramp. Game 5 was a ZvZ in which he massed roaches whilst I went for fast hydras and got crushed. I don’t entirely know why, but I think it was because of some of some miss-micro in moving my units around causing me to lose early hydras. He compounded his advantage by throwing in mutalisks and denying my expansion twice! I feel like I could have won this game if only I’d been more attentive, but roaches are really strong so there’s not much room for error. In game 6 it was PvP in which I cheesily quick teched to void rays and he conceded since he had no counter. After all this, I was finally placed into the bronze league at something like 17th place.

Feeling chuffed from a reasonable number of victories and confident that my fellow bronze leaguers would all be noobs, I forged ahead into ranked games and got CRUSHED three times in a row.

My first league game was wierd. It was TvT and initially we both went for a marine and tank build, but I beat him to the punch and contained him whilst he played very passively. Thinking that I had this game in the bag I showily teched to battle cruisers, but I mounted my attack from across a gap, which was cool because he couldn’t fight back, but I also couldn’t advance my ground army to support. This meant that my push was slow and he was able to mass AA faster than I could mass cruisers allowing him to make a come back. The game could have been very different if I’d just attacked up his ramp like a normal person, rather than trying to show off. My second and third games were even less spectacular. In both cases I tried to cheese and got shut down - serves me right! The second game was ZvT in which I tried to roach rush, only to discover it doesn’t really work against a walled in Terran. He easily held off my initial push, then went MMM and banshees. I had no AA and my army was too small from having been thrown away on his wall, so I just crumbled. The third game was PvP in which I walled in and tried to void ray rush, but got shut down by mass stalkers. Undeterred I teched to carriers, but was only able to get 3 out before he attacked with his stalker blob and made short work of them. If I’d gone for a mothership as well I think I might have been okay.

My macro is getting marginally better, but as I said, I’m questioning the wisdom of playing random every game, since it doesn’t really give me an opportunity to refine my builds. I think I’m going to keep going random for another 20 games, just so that I get a more solid feel for what each race can do, then pick a race to specialize in. Currently I’m thinking either Zerg or Protoss. Terran is waaaaaay too fiddly, although they do have the best music by a long way.