SC2SEA.com - Starcraft 2 SEA eSports Community Site

Hey guys! I've decided to retain the name of my column 'Road to Masters' because it's got a ring to it and I like it Basically when I'm going to blog about anything related to my actual gameplay, I'm going to use that as a title.

Before I continue with this short entry, if people are actually interested in reading what I've been up to, you can click to read more. If not, just skip on to the rest of it's ok. I won't be hurt. Much.


So Season 3 has just kickstarted, and this coincided with WoW's weekly downtime, so since I can't play WoW, I decided to play a game of SC2 and get placed into a league!

Now, I was well-prepared to lose this game, because I haven't played for 3-4 weeks!(Apart from a few ZvZs I played with some random dude from chat during last week's Tuesday WoW maintenance, in which I cheesed (7 / 8 /10 pool) most of them lol) Waaay rusty.

Full recap of the game, with my thoughts and the gameplay!
(If written recaps are not your thing, you can always watch the game here:
http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=386 )

Map - Shakuras Plateau
crAzerk vs GTmelo


I swear this guy's nick is familiar. You'll see me asking him about it in the next screenshot.
Did he win GPD or something before?

Anyway, because I'm a casual player now, I wanted my games to be filled with friendly chat and fun, so I did a special Zerg opening:


The goodmannered chat - not 'glhf' but 'hey sup how are you doing'. Seriously that takes up a lot more APM than 'glhf' so is a lot harder to pull off.

ANYWAY, I opened the standard 14gas/14pool, since being so out of touch I didn't dare try anything fancy. My drone scouted the wrong way, and when I found out he was cross pos I saw this:


Damn it, Nexus first.

SO hate it when Protoss goes for that! Being a slightly bigger map it's harder to do any kind of roach bust or ling/bling shenanigans to punish the greedy Nexus first, and also I haven't been practising those.

Thus, I decided to go the macro route -
What do you do when a Protoss fast expands? You double expand of course! I kept drones off gas after my Zergling speed, and kept making drones. Expanded to my natural at 20, and got my 3rd at 31.

These aren't memorized timings (even if they were, after a 1month break, i wouldn't have remembered them ), I just made drones until I was larva blocked and my minerals hit 300 then I expanded.
I don't know if this is a good gauge, but it's also a personal gauge I use in normal games to know when I should get a 3rd. If I notice my minerals are getting high despite me spending (after saturating both bases of course) I will expand.

It's very important to understand what it means when a Protoss fast expands:
- he won't be able to attack you for at least until 7-8 minutes (of course, exceptions exist, but this is the typical case), usually later.
- he's 'ahead' of you in econ if you stay on 2 base, so you need to power drone hard to keep even.

Also, I knew a potential 'flaw' in the FE from when I played Protoss and FE myself (Toss is my offrace) - it's hard to deny that Overlord scout! Because typically you'll want to be banking up gas to get your tech ASAP or saving up minerals to get your multiple gateways so you won't be getting an early Stalker out.

Knowing that, I flew my OL in from the back and ... jackpot!


It was an odd build - Stargate with 5 Gateways?

It seemed to me that he was trying to do too many things at once - Should either rush the Stargate and get some VR/Phoenix harass done or go 6 gate (with or without Blink/+1). This build just doesn't feel as streamlined to me. I could be wrong, I'm only Diamond/Masters level and I'm not even Protoss.

I was originally expecting a 6gate push so I had my RW up and was still droning and waiting for the opportune moment to pump roaches/tech, but when I saw this I quickly teched Lair and got 1 spore crawler at each base, aiming to hit Hydras to deal with any VR-Stalker push.
With my heavy droning, I could maintain a decent worker lead as well.

I started making units apparently at the perfect time (upon watching the replay), I'm really quite surprised! lol. He moved out with an army of 3 sentries and 7 zealots, and added 2 more gateways as well
(And a Robo and a Twilight Council)

He then made the mistake of the game (it seemed like that to me)


Zealot sentry running up to attack my 3rd base which he scouted with a phoenix earlier
(sorry for screwed up pic)


Stalkers which just warped in lagging behind and got cut off!! He even forcefielded himself off.

This resulted in him losing all his stalkers to my superior roach/hydra army, and while his zealot/sentries managed to take down my 3rd, they didnt' kill any drones because I had Burrow

See ya next time Zealots!

As I said, he took down my 3rd because his sentries kept my ramp forcefielded so I couldn't get rid of the Zealots pounding away at my Hatchery. However, once the FFs ended my army promptly marched up and cleared up his force.


After this sequence, I had a huge confidence boost, because I knew I was ahead. If not for totally missing a big rallied army, I think I would have won right there with a counter attack.
However, being the noob rusty player I am,

I left THIS force behind, which was essentially half of my entire army, and my little poke at his 3rd had to pull back because I saw his force was around equal or probably greater than mine (or half of mine)

After pulling back I realized my mistake, grabbed the other half and quickly went back again - but this gave him time for another round of Stalkers.


I saw his 3rd with the XN Watchtower, and his army size was fairly large, plus I didn't want to fight in that choke which he could easily cut my army into half. Thus I pulled back, and continued to macro - I double expanded and droned up abit more.

I then followed up with some poke and dance - I didn't want to engage at the choke, but I WANTED to engage to trade armies, even if at a loss (Always good to cut down Protoss armies). If you watch the replay you can see my little dance with him at 14:30.

I finally found my window of opportunity where he threw down cannons and backed AWAY from the choke. This gave me the chance to run my entire army through before he could Forcefield the choke off

Carnage ensued

I lost that fight but I did what I wanted to do - keep his army as low as I can. I was fairly confident that I was ahead in economy with my 4 bases (I was, by at least 10 harvestors most of the time), and continued teching to Hive while getting my missile/carapace upgrades. Of course, the precautionary Spire was up, ready to pump out a round of Corruptors in case he brought in Collusi.

I rounded up another army of Roach/Hydra, and with my strong economy, I got maxxed out pretty fast so I went to engage again. Man, I was REALLY sloppy on injects


Zerg streaming in

At this point, his macro was really slipping, his resources in the thousands, and Colossus tech WAY late. He didn't even have one out at this point! (18 minutes)


Oh wait, he did have one out. But it died fast.

I took out that expansion easily (was about 80 food ahead before engagement) and after that it was a clinical finish - clear up any expansions, and contain him with my main army, and either wait till he mined himself out or just brute force my way through.


I chose the latter Storm the front!


Now, the win would have been sweeter if not for this:



Well, in his defence, he DID say GG so he was NOT bm or anything, and he DID NOT try to claim that lag was causing him problems.. but bringing that up just insinuates that. Oh well. Perhaps lag DID cause him that first major mistake which I highlighted.

But I felt I won because

- his build was not streamlined, resulting in a late attack and late tech
- He had poor macro once we hit the midgame - Needed 2 robo facilities probably and spend those resources more!
- I had decent macro - droned up like a boss
- 132 APM?? WTF. Didn't realize I was playing at such high APM. (High for me) I think after his first mistake and my confidence boost, I shifted into 'the zone' and my instinct from the past just kicked over and I began spamming keys - macroing up, spreading creep, etc. Felt good


Yup that's it! My next ladder game will probably be... I've no idea, I would say Tuesdays, but next week I have a school camp. Probably in 2 weeks? I don't know if I should drop to Diamond or just keep playing on this - will probably face tougher opponents who will steamroll me.

Anyway, feel free to critique my gameplay, provide feedback, or just say anything you want at the bottom! (Well, besides flaming of course )
If you missed the link at the start, the replay can be found here:
http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=386

Also, if you are a WoW player on Frostmourne (Horde), just say hi! My nick is Razerk (if I'm on my alt it's Razers)

Thanks for reading! Tell your friends about me!