SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

Hey all, I'm Rhuubarb and this is my first blog.

I've never been much of a writer. I probably lack creativity and am just boring in general. I've also been a bit of a lurker and don't really post much. But that's all changing, or at least I'm trying to change. I'm going to try and be more active in this community, whether it be attending lans/other offline events (more on that later), chatting more in the shoutbox/chat channels and playing in more tournaments. I don't really know what has caused this, probably Heart of the Swarm (I'm like a 'expansion terran' that doesn't use bio), but I've been more into Starcraft 2 in the last few months than I have been in a long time.

Either way, I decided to change my hermit ways and attended the TtHub LAN in Melbourne, a couple of weeks back. This was the first LAN I've ever been to and going into it, I just wanted to meet people ad have some fun because I didn't expect to do very well. As it turned out, my expectations were 100% correct. I got owned and knocked out in straight sets (it was double elim), but I had blast and met many cool people, some that knew me as Rhuubarb from certain things, and some I had never/vaguely heard of before. I can't wait to go to another event, whether it be a barcraft or a LAN itself (unfortunately I missed the next week cause I was feeling like shit).

Other than trying to be more social/active with the community, I've decided to try and become a better player. For so long in WoL I was content to sit in diamond, and play in SEACL with my clan (who are awesome) and fail in the finals of multiple in GPDs... I also often got bored of my race and switched race multiple times in WoL, ending up playing as a Mech-only terran. In HotS, I think I've settle and have decided to try and improve a lot more. I was happy that only a day after I decided to try more seriously and grind some ladder (not something I ever did) I was able to get myself promoted to masters on NA and SEA (haven't played yet on KR... or EU). Since then the results have dropped somewhat, but I've recently been finding myself a lot more comfortable with the matchups and my actual play has been improving. For a bit I tried to learn how to bio, but that really didn't suit me and I've gone back to Mech.

Which brings me to Mech! Playing Mech in WoL had it's challenges, especially in TvP... But HotS has changed it completely. While, yes, the other races (and even Terrans themselves... probably especially Terrans...) have got new tools to deal with Mech, the new tools of Mech have made the game much more enjoyable for me personally. Now I know you are thinking I'm one of those guys who just widow mine drops/abuses each and every game, and I admit that I do WM drop here and there. But I've moved away from doing it most of the time, unless there is just a blatant opening for it to be abused. I'm trying to play as solid as possible without relying on gimmicks (I personally don't see Mech TvP as a gimmick... I know some do) and have been learning to hit timings to control the pace of the game (something I learned trying to learn bio+mine vs zerg but sucked ass with at it). I've still got a lot of room to improve but I'm very happy with my TvP atm.

According to my NA statistics, I have a 70% winrate in TvP, 50% in TvT and 40% in TvZ. All those TvPs have been playing Mech (or die trying). There is always the talk about whether Mech is viable or not (vs Protoss). According to different people, you can get opinions that any unit from Protoss counters Mech, and while some of that might be true (especially in a vacuum), I don't necessarily agree. I'm going to add a replay pack of some of my TvP Mech wins from macro games since I hit masters. Unfortunately I didn't get to face much MASS tempest play (I did one game but I lost that cause I did STUPID SHIT, it's also not in the replays cause I sorted it by wins, if anyone is interested in that game I can find you the replay), and the game in the pack I did was pretty silly. There are some good games in there, some pretty ordinary games too... but hopefully it will give you an idea of how to Mech vs Protoss, especially if you are not playing against top masters, but against mid masters and lower like me.

Thanks for reading!

(Apparently I can't get the upload to here.. so: http://www.filehosting.org/file/deta...TvP%20Mech.zip)