Starcraft II

[Solomon]

Did a whole bunch of Funday Monday games last night with a couple different teams. This one was the most Epic - both teams were doing Funday Monday:

Ink Saya Protein Keith vs Heff Gryzzly Steven Fwiffo

Haha, watching right now...I think your role was the hardest...the mothership is such a crucial unit, but it's so slow and it was always behind allied units. And it didn't help that one guy went mass ghosts and kept EMPing, would have been nice to see some vortex action earlier .

[fwiffo]

It seems like both HTs and Ghosts counter the mothership pretty hard, and they were using both (I think it got feed-backed and EMPed several times over the course of the game). Its build time is 160 seconds, and doesn't spawn with much energy, so each time it lost its shield and energy, it had to back off or I'd be completely out of the action for a long, long time. I actually got to use it a lot more in some of the other games we've played, but they've all been pretty one sided. Either we just rolled over the other team because they were such weak players, or we got rushed before our high-tech units got out.

One combo that seems to have worked more than once is mothership+thor for some reason. I guess because mass SCV repair works really well on both. In another game we managed to archon-toilet a large group of enemy mutalisks and terran bio, but it wasn't a very competitive game overall.

The nice thing about being the mothership guy is that it's easy to macro exactly one unit; you never need to expand, or get extra production buildings, just worry about controlling one unit, getting upgrades and passing off excess resources to teammates.

[Solomon]

Watching sanZenith's games in the GSL ro32 almost makes me think I could fly over to Korea and make it past qualifiers, what was he thinking with that build order and strategy in game 1? Yeah okay, he probably choked or was on a bad day, but still...blahhhhhhh. Game 2 was also bad, but understandable as I have seen that BO a handful of times in PvZ on Scrap...although I've almost never seen it work out for Protoss. Roach rush as it was played in the game kills it, and I've also seen PsY take it out very easily with a ling rush that's not all-in (though an all-in with a super early pool could probably of course also take it out).

And IdrA played really well . I'm sure everyone knows which particular ZvZ matchup I'm really looking forward to . Nada also played very well of course, but that was expected since he is Nada. Game 3 especially shows how to win a game when you've got the lead imo.

[fwiffo]

I only have been able to watch the first game from each series, but that cannon thing was *horrible*. I would have beat that, and I am really bad. I don't remember sanZenith being that bad in GSL1. I'm surprised at some of the players who didn't qualify considering a few of the matches we've seen so far in season 2.

[MountainGo]

And IdrA played really well .

Now there's an understatement. Maybe it's just because I follow him more than any other player, but he is the only guy out there that gives me the impression of effortlessness. He isn't using special strategies or busting out surprises on his opponent. He just calmly marches, step by step, toward inevitable victory, responding comfortably to whatever offensive attempts his opponents make. Pure poetry.

For anyone who knows of such things, feel free to recommend to me any other players who have a similar ability.

EDIT: I just watched that sanZenith Forge expand on Delta Quadrant, and that was actually uncomfortable to watch. I feel awful for him. Only he knows what led to him doing all that, and he probably feels incredibly embarrassed about it. Too bad. (Artosis even called his play "dumb". Ouch.)

[Tooveli]

And IdrA played really well .

Now there's an understatement. Maybe it's just because I follow him more than any other player, but he is the only guy out there that gives me the impression of effortlessness. He isn't using special strategies or busting out surprises on his opponent. He just calmly marches, step by step, toward inevitable victory, responding comfortably to whatever offensive attempts his opponents make. Pure poetry.

For anyone who knows of such things, feel free to recommend to me any other players who have a similar ability.

I got the same impression from IdrA in the last round of the gsl, but I thought it was more because his opponent wasn't playing so well (though I admit I can't really tell the difference between IdrA being amazing and his opponent good and IdrA being good and his opponent average). I've seen games with IdrA where it felt like he was struggling to adapt, just hoping to be able to sit in his fantasy world where he can play as usual and effortlessly crush his opponents (eg. when he got knocked out of gsl season 1). Fruit dealer on the other hand, has seemed to be playing effortlessly in every game I've seen him in, as well as responding well to his opponents and coming up with cool ideas.

I think it's most likely to get that feeling from games with Zerg as that's just how they work. You can't really see all the tough decisions that go into getting the ratio of drones to army right or quite how close they come to failing when it is done well. With some of fruit dealer's games I get the impression that he's sat there thinking:
(thoughtfully) OK, so he's going all-in with an early push.
(despondently) I guess I'll have to build another roach and one less drone...
(gleefully) ...and then I'll just win once I've defended it.

[Solomon]

For anyone who knows of such things, feel free to recommend to me any other players who have a similar ability.

NaDa. Especially his 2nd game in the most recent GSL round. Unlike what most players would do, he didn't try to win by outright aggression and commit to a push when he knew he was ahead. Instead, he calmly expanded and slowly starved his opponent to death as he gained map control with a tank line contain until eventually his opponent couldn't take it any longer and run resource-hungry into a brick wall and lose. His tank management is nothing short of godly.

[Solomon]

This GSL RO32 is something I'm reallyyyyyyyyyyyy looking forward to watching, with 3 PvX matchups, a fruit dealer, and a bunshin + real Boxer playing. I don't know much about CoreJJang, but NEXGenius and oGsInCa are top class Protoss players. NEXGenius unfortunately got knocked out last season to the biggest cheeser (but best interviewee) DAVIT, and oGsInCa lost to a 6-pool from the fruit dealer on Kulas Ravine of all maps lol.

My predictions:
FruitDealer 2 : 0 BoxeR
oGsInCa 2 : 1 TankboyPrime
NEXGenius 2 : 1 Gilja
SlayerSBoxeR 2 : 1 CoreJJang

[ketchup]

Win, did not see this daily, but funny clip. No wonder he gets over 9000 viewers nowadays

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utaWZT5N-tQ

[Hushfield]

Win, did not see this daily, but funny clip. No wonder he gets over 9000 viewers nowadays

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utaWZT5N-tQ

I literally fell out of my chair laughing when I saw this. Perhaps the funniest Day9 moment of all time, although Day[9] Daily #193 - Funday Monday: No Marines, Marauders or Tanks! was of the same calibre. For one hour straight. He was on some serious bearsemen that episode

[fwiffo]

Uniden!

[CSamurai]

So, I'm trying to learn terran. It's not that I'm letting go of the protoss (I still return to them when I want to get serious and recover the points I let go as a terran) but I'm trying to branch out, so that I can play more than a single race. My goal is to have some experience as all the races, and I'd like that to start in bronze, since it's only going to get harder from here on out.

So I got to realizing, after almost 300 games, I've got a lot of experience as a protoss. I've recovered some games simply because I knew what I could afford to let go and focused on damage control.

And I don't have any of that as terrans. Also, the micro is much more intensive for terrans. I can hurl a crowd of stalkers, immortals, and collosi and a few phoenixes at an opponent, and be reasonably certain that I can just go back to building and pick up micro in a few minutes. Doing this with terran MMMs ends with a LOT of dead marauders.

Also, does the match making system weight what race matchups are available based on your playing record? I went several weeks without seeing more than a couple zerg, mostly terrans. I switched to Terran, and suddenly I had 4 straight zerg opponents... How does that work?

(Mutalisks are mean. So fast.)

[fwiffo]

Everybody's playing Zerg now since the last patch since they're not considered weak anymore.

[CSamurai]

I meant to ask in my last post, but got sidetracked by work, how do you guys learn a new race/build/whatever? Do you set up games against the computer and play the build until you feel good with it before playing against people? Do you get people to practice with you? I'd like to learn it like I learned protoss (Just play it in league until everything starts to click) but I don't want to ruin my skill rating again.

Also, would anyone be willing to help me refine my PvT skills? I suck vs MMM builds. I mean, really, an early marauder push makes me a sad panda.

[Solomon]

I meant to ask in my last post, but got sidetracked by work, how do you guys learn a new race/build/whatever? Do you set up games against the computer and play the build until you feel good with it before playing against people? Do you get people to practice with you? I'd like to learn it like I learned protoss (Just play it in league until everything starts to click) but I don't want to ruin my skill rating again.

Also, would anyone be willing to help me refine my PvT skills? I suck vs MMM builds. I mean, really, an early marauder push makes me a sad panda.

Gotta let go with caring about your stats and rating and just use the ladder as a way to work on your builds. Ladder stats are seasonal anyways. Also, it's not the same trying to apply a BO against a computer versus a human.

And the best way to work on or against a particular strategy is to just find someone who plays Terran and would be willing to use the same strategy repeatedly. Unfortunately I don't play Terran so can't help you there.