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Gentlemen,

Since my first blog entry, I have been exceptionally busy. Work chews up too much time (I miss my uni days), I played my first Magic: the Gathering tournament in about 6 years, and have been going out for dinner a bit. Overall, means I haven't played that much Starcraft in the 10 days since my last entry. My match history says I have gone 7-4 in this time, a game a day. I will be getting back into it tomorrow night and all weekend, trying to push my MMR a touch higher so I will definitely get promoted to plat for season 3. I got smashed in my Magic tournament, but that story will be included later in this piece.

Today, I want to write about a topic that is very much a personal choice. Why I play Zerg. It may sound like a strange topic, but I wonder whether many people really consider why they play the race they do. I presume that some players choose a race because it is overpowered (protoss) or because of the cool units (Terran – is it just me or are Vikings and Thors just boss). When I hear OP or balance rage, my usual answer is as follows: “You literally have the option to swap to that race”.

I play zerg for one reason: drones. After playing the other two races for extended periods, the thought of being able to set your economy up now, to then smash out units later really appeals to me personally. The choice between pumping drones or units each 25 seconds makes me feel more in control of my game – you own your wins and you own your losses, because at each step of the game you chose to do what you did. That is not to say I do not get frustrated: when early pressure arrives and throws me off, it isn't a case of I missed too many drones or I missed a round of warpins, it is either I screwed my army by droning to hard (lose the game now) or my have screwed my economy by building too many workers (lose the game later). I hope this doesn't sound like a balance rage: I have made my choice to be a macro Zerg, and I am happy with the choices I have made.

But as a macro Zerg, there are problems that are unique to that style. As opposed to those that would rather rely on timing pushes, I either lose quickly or win slowly. It is almost the opposite of the Korean style: win quickly, win often.

Speaking of Koreans, I think Starcraft has scarred me. As stated previously, I played a Magic: the gathering tournament in Brisbane on Saturday. It was a pre-release, so I did not need to have cards or anything, I just had to build a deck with what they gave me. So I get to the third and final round, going 1-1, and the listings are up so I sit at the designated table. Then this Korean looking guy walks over and sits down on the other side of my table. My brain's initial response was to go “well I guess I've lost this round then.” What the hell? How did my brain, without any thought, just assume that I was going to get punished in a magic tournament because the guy looked remotely Korean, like that was some inherit advantage to have? Coincidentally, he then proceeded to punish me. Then, as the worst finisher of my group of friends, I had to buy lunch. Good-bye for 5 more years Magic.

Tangent aside, after another lesson with PiG, and a trial lesson with Deth, it was amazing how they came to the exact same conclusion regarding my play: if you are going to play zerg, your drone saturation needs to be right. Close enough is not good enough as Zerg. This seems to be due to the drone/unit dichotomy, and given that a drone will pay for itself in about a minute, building it early just makes things smoother. This is what I must work on if I want to ever go higher than Gold.

But back to the point of my post, why do I like Zerg? As a Starcraft 2 player, I really like going to the late game- unlike players who like timing attacks (whether 4 rax, 4 gate, or a big two base terran/protoss push), I dont ever miss my timing because I don't have one. I want to go the late game, at which time I will grind my opponent down so they have no chance at winning. But to stop those timing pushes, I need to have my drones and expos early- which suits me down to the ground. If I can get away with making more drones, I will. As an aside, I seem to be losing to terran late game recently. Once they get their siege tank ball with like marauders, I don't seem to be able to crack it. Are Broodlords the answer?

In other news, I played another BSG tournament for this site, was knocked in the ro8 out by the eventual winner, Static (sc2sea name Static Orb). He was a good guy, and had much better micro than I. Maybe this weekend will be mine, hopefully anyway as it is the last I may play in as I should be close to a promotion to plat for new season.

Here is a replay of a game from this week. Forge fast expand vs macro zerg. My plat opponent wasnt great, which always makes me ask the same question: why am I in gold? As always, watch it if you want, dont if you dont.




Why do you play the race you play?