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Seasons greetings everybody!! Twas the season to be jolly and indeed I was. A solid 1-2 weeks with no work and little other gaming induced stress has left me feeling quite serene and relaxed!
Such relaxed feelings of sc2 since there were/are no competitions atm led me to pull out the ol' dota2 and HOTS beta, which turned out to be quite fun/good games. Prior to sc2 I used to play dota1 quite a lot for around 3-4 years, despite not getting very good at it >.< and unfortunately dota2 isn't much different haha. HOTS tho was a little bit of a different story. Gifted to me it's quite similar to WoL (go figure) and testing out new builds, new transitions and new unit compositions was really fun, especially for the first 30 games or so as you could make an assload of mistakes and still win the game
This brings us to the first topic, This Week I Learned!

TWIL will be about HOTS and all things HOTS.
As you might know I play Zerg, and before I hear screams about patches I gotta say, Protoss feels pretty strong to play against. It was quite eye opening to have enemy Protoss completely over commit their army of Auir, kill your third only to recall away no problem-o. Coupled with it's defensive capabilities + sentries counter attacks are hard/impossible to pull off. I have only played around 100 games, and most of them being sub-GM level, but on first impressions gateway expo into mo'core + quick nexus seems to be extremely strong, but a lot of that obviously, is my own limitations at knowing the appropriate responses, but my current timings are thus:

Gateway-cyber core-nexus 5-6 Sentries comes aroudn 7:30-8:00 if I recall (geddit?)
Now, the problem comes when you see a gateway expand you're not quite sure when you can take your third. If they go for an early as **** 6 gate you're screwed, but if they tech on 2 bases and you don't take your third out of fear you are yet again, fucked.
To combat this on 2 bases I mine 100gas, pull workers, take a third, and watch the nexus like a hawk with saccing overlords around the 6 minute mark/watching how many workers go to natural + gases. When mo'core is building, its obvious as shit on the nexus, take early third, drone to around 35 and make a bunch of lings to slow his initial pushout (similar to how you delay immortal sentry). From here you can tech/power to your choosing. If he doesn't go for a mo'core push hes either teching which is fine since you're on three bases, or hes 6-7 gating you which you still hold of amply.

If he opens forge FE timings are slightly different, but similar principles still apply. After a FFE the most common openers I found are to be stargate, typically hiding 4-5 oracles (sometimes standard phoenix tho) and then pushing out to hopefully catch you off-guard and rape the shit out of your worker line. Make no mistake, those little fuckers will destroy all your hard working drones in a matter of seconds, then fly away promptly to return in another minute and thrust their throbbing pulsar beam deeply into you once more. To combat this I feel like you have to be more active scouting the sentry count at the front. As always watch their 3/4 gas, but 95% of protoss I've seen so far will take these standard, so you must know if their gas is going into sentries or stargate play, as TYPICALLY (not always) due to the build time of phoenix/oracle will take up more gas than robo play. If you see less than 2-3 at about 7 mins its a good bet they are opening stargate, or you can always just sac an overlord. Now, once you've seen their early 3/4 gas, I personally like to go mutas into swarm hosts, transitioning in a similar style how you would out of mutas in zvz. When spire is done build 8-12 depending, then throw down you're infestation pit, +1 Missiles should be about half way done, and from here I like to spam Hydra Swarm Host. Swarm Hosts function like siege tanks, the more you get, the better they are. (duh). But more to the point, once you get around 12 or so, which isn't that much gas, you simply park them outside the front of toss base, have good control on your hydras to snipe obs etc +harassing around with your mutas and grabbing 4th/5th base (4th should go down soon after spire starts if you think he's not 2-basing you). This enables you to grab a ****-tonne of gases (yes thats the scientific explanation), transition to a relatively quick hive for viper, as his colossi SHOULD be delayed by ur muta harass, then viper his colossi into your shit and he dies if he hasn't already.

A lot of that is subject to in-game shenanigans but typically that is my goal going into the game.

For zvz I don't feel the m/u has changed that much, with perhaps more emphasis on the Swarm host instead of the infestor, as defensively they are very strong, and once you accumulate 10+ they become stupidly cost-efficient in small-ish numbers. Taking a delayed 3rd and remaining safe whilst massive swarm host queen roach is actually really ******* strong. As queens help sniper their overseers, help tank, help roaches tank, then swarm hosts trade so damn efficiently. Delaying your third will make you safe vs any of the timing attacks that would kill you otherwise as I stated before, swarm hosts suck ass before you get a well, swarm of them.
I toyed around with a 1-1 Ling Hydra 2 base timing that is quite good if you catch your opponent unawares, however if he sees it coming and gets bling speed and micros well, he will most likely show you why hydras never got used in WoL.

For ZvT I thought this m/u hadn't changed much, and then I played someone who went Battle Hellion marine medivac timing. Man I wish I had some lube handy when that push hit me, as it was quite painful in areas I presume you can guess. Currently I'm doing early speedling harass to defend reaper and other shenanigans + put pressure on him into mutas into ultras as those fuckers clean up bio + marines with ease. Alas, if I could count then I would be able to count the amount of zvt's I've played on just my fingers, with no need for dem toes. So I hope I hit more soon as I feel horribly under prepared in this m/u.

Thats it! Didn't learn shit else really, other than the importance of mechanics > unit compositions.

Next on to dota2!
When I was a dota1 aficionado I still couldn't stand spectating dota/moba games, but for whatever reason dota2 is actually equally fun to watch and play, in many thanks to LD Dota's Casting abilities! So, the point of this rambling, is that I want to do more for SEA Dota, but I have absolutely no idea where to start, as apparently there are no real SEA communities for dota. I think it'd be cool to do a SEA News Podcast style show for Dota2, so if anyone knows someone who knows someone who knows someone else who knows a lot about SEA dota, please contact me so we can possible work something out! Either by PM, Twitter (@heyitskez), skype (kerry.r.hopkins) or e-mail (kezzer_88@hotmail.com).

Christmas + New years, tonnes of food and alcohol about raps my holidays. Now I have the pain-in-the-ass task of cutting for a Bodybuilding competition I wish to enter called the ANB Fitness Mania Championships on the 24th of March, but more news on that later/if at all >.< (inb4 jokes about DYEL)

So I think that's about it, be sure to check out the SEA News Podcast ep #11 TOMORROW BITCHES at 7:30 AEDT. I'll be streaming predominately HOTS in the next few weeks where you can check out how terrible my above strategies end up working out.

Until next time,
Kez.