[Sparrow]

SEA's ladder is an unforgiving nightmare for Terran players. Comparisons between watching pelicans killing children on beaches while they sunbathe and SEA’s ladder experience would be classed as accurate.

To get straight to the point, SEA’s frightened Terran population have been cowering in the darkness, afraid to show themselves. But today, I, the savior of the terran race, “The Eagle”, “The Mystical Raven”, have the solution which will wash away their fears as they bathe in the knowledge that they no longer have to fear the Protoss Blink Stalker All-In. They no longer need cut wrists with the shards of broken mirror they DESTROYED to mask the pain of that early Zerg Baneling Bust. For I shall unveil, Today, the information which they will need to prevail against the tyrants whom use their races imbalanced traits to vault themselves to olympic victory.

Lets start with the basics then shall we.

1. The Opener.

This is the most important part. In order to stay safe a player must make sure to build their buildings at the right time, making sure they have units to defend and efficiently, ensuring minerals are spent as they are mined. Also they must position their buildings in such a way that no cheesy shenanigans from their opponents can occur. The build order below is one of the safest build orders a Terran can do, whilst maintaining their economy. The build is derived from pro players and other analysis (teamliquid.net), I’ve included some of the pro players matches at the bottom of the article.

Time: Supply: Production:
00:59 10 Supply Depot
01:35 12 Barracks (SCV cut)
01:48 12 Refinery (end SCV cut after this starts)
02:42 15 Orbital Command
02:53 15 Reaper
03:15 16 Supply Depot
Either tech/more barracks for aggressive play.
OR Command Center on high ground for macro play.

The reason that this build order is so effective for defending early game aggression is because the first three buildings, supply depot, barracks ,supply depot, are all built at your ramp. Meaning that any super early aggression, 6 pools, 10 pools, proxy gateways or even proxy barracks are all blocked and are easily defend-able with a repair as you wait for your first units to pop out. Secondly the units that you are getting out early are incredibly fast, reapers in the early game are the fastest units you can get before 6:00 meaning that they can kite any unit if you have to defend and also dart in and out of your opponents base to see if they are intending to be aggressive. But how can you tell if your opponent is being aggressive?

2. Scouting.

Aggression for all races after the first 5 minutes of the game relies on gas. So how do you tell if your opponent is being aggressive? Easy, you check to see if he is mining gas, or you click on his gas buildings to see how much gas he may have mined. This would be difficult information to acquire if we did not use the reaper as a scout. Below are some key timings you can use to scout and also the possible tech route that your opponent may be going.

Note: These timings are crisp, meaning that they are at the speeds that a pro player would do them, if you do not see aggression at the times in the chart, do not immediately assume that it is not coming, it may be late or it may be an alteration, either way it just means that you are getting a bigger lead in the game.

Your first reaper should arrive at 4:10 minutes in game time if it is the earliest possible and the map is small. Your first goal with this reaper is to check how much gas your opponent is mining or has mined.

2.1. Protoss.



As you can see here from this Protoss player, he is mining both gysers with 3 probes on each gas. This indicates that he is going for gas based aggressive play. It is now your job to sniff out what he is doing.

Unfortunately even with the reaper this is no easy task, but what you are looking for is, is he saving up chrono boost to produce an upgrade or unit quickly. But most importantly you are looking for either extra gateways, a stargate, robotics facility, or a twilight council. If you opponent is playing aggressive he will have to begin one of these structures, especially the tech structures within the next minute. Some good places to check for structures, especially stargates and robos are near your base since your opponent will want to reduce travel distance. Once you have found what your opponent is building, get defensive units and structures as necessary.

One of the most important things versus Protoss is making sure to build an engineering bay at around the 5:00 - 6:30 mark, just in case your opponent is going for Dark Templars. If you have not been attacked but scouted double gas early and do not see an expansion then you MUST build a turret at your natural, and your main asap. Dark Templars can attack at around 7:15 - 7:30 so be ready.

Another common tell from Protoss is that if they are going blink stalkers they generally will get out an early 2 stalkers, so if you scout this with your reaper begin building bunkers, marauders and perhaps a tank inside of your main base. If you have to, bring your expansion back to your main base until the attack is over, you don't want stalkers picking off your command center.

Your last task in defending against aggression is waiting for your stimpack upgrade and medivacs before moving out onto the map.



If your opponent is taking two gas another thing you can do in order to be aware of what he is up to is to move an scv to his natural and hide it behind it, that way you will know if he is just taking a late expansion or not.

2.2. Zerg.



From this Zerg we can see that it is passed 4:00 and he is yet to take an expansion, if this is the case or his expansion has just started prepare to defend against aggression. Build a bunker in your main base as you are most likely going to see early banelings or roaches.



However if your reapers are chased away from the Zerg's base by early lings before you can scout, you MUST assume that he is going aggressive, build bunkers and wall off at the low ground.

Generally Zergs take their third base at just after 6:00, if this isn't the case, make sure to keep scouting until you find out what they are doing.

If you scout roaches at any point on in the early game it is always a good idea to build 2-3 siege tanks in order to defend any roach busts that the Zerg may commit to.

If you scout more than 1 gas from any race as an opener be ready for aggression. Do note however that protoss sometimes like to take both gysers, send 2 workers to each and then expand so check the number of workers mining before you commit to defending.

3. The Transition.

The transition out of defense is almost completely down to your opponents skill level. You yourself have to analyse when the best time to push back against their aggression. The biggest tell for this is when your opponent takes an expansion themselves. However this can sometimes be difficult to scout, especially when it is in the middle of their aggressive maneuvers. Two things you can try is to either scan if you think that your opponent has spent their minerals somewhere else or leave an Scv at your opponents natural.

An important thing to remember is that if you successfully scout that your opponent is going to be aggressive then from that moment, you have the upper hand. All you need to do is keep calm, you’re already winning, just build a few bunkers and defend appropriately, then either counter attack or increase the economic advantage you gained from defending successfully and win later on in the game, easy.

The most important thing to remember is stimpack and medivacs, they are what makes terran strong. Also to keep constantly building units, don’t get distracted, don’t get supply blocked. Keep the reapers alive at all costs until you know exactly what your opponent is doing. Do not trade your reaper for scv kills, if you get attacked just get out and come back later.

Just remember the mid game is Terran's game.

If you have any questions or want to discuss anything, please leave a post below.

Thanks.

Sources:
Polt vs Hyun June 30, 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpNHippCVCE#t=21m10
Polt vs Revival Sep 24, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZr0eVbfA8Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZr0eVbfA8Y

Miya vs Dream Apr 22, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CQCGUd80Ag

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CQCGUd80Ag

Lucifron vs Hope Apr 22, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRdp9f2hMf8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRdp9f2hMf8

Innovation vs Zest Sep 23, 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I79ssGSeDdc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I79ssGSeDdc

[Matt93]

I have never seen a pelican kill a child on a beach.

[Sparrow]

I thought you said you live in Australia?

P.S This post possibly needs to be moved to general threads :/ sorry!

[AussieStarcraft]

Thanks for taking the time to write this, working on Terran a bit at the moment, they are my off race but fun to play around with. You watch GM's deflect the cheese almost effortlessly whereas my poor terran seem to mill about in circles as I'm 20-30 seconds late with the right counters to the various cheeses.