[creed]

This is a seris of 1v1 practice with my friend, (T V Z) I would be very pleased if you guys could give some pointers.. thanks
i am in bronze 32 and my friend is in silver 22 i guess. army composition: marine tank thor VS bangling zergling .mutalisk infestor broodlings

[breadfan]

Hi there, and welcome

Can you give any more info, like which league you're in, etc?

I'll check them out as soon as I finish this delicious breakfast OMNOMNOM

Quick Comments

	ROOTPetraeus:	breadfan baller
	Apth:	Dat analysis
	ToRPandarine:	OMNOMNOM :0
	nirvAnA:

[mGGDrGooSe]

Well seeing as Breadfan is taking care of you as terran, I thought I might do the zerg. I've only had time to do the one game on Shattered I'm afraid and only went up to about 12 min, because at that stage your friend could have just baneling busted the door and rallied lings to win. I likely won't get time to do the other games I'm afraid.

Opening

On shattered and Metal, always use your first overlord to scout the close the air position. This will allow you to see their gas timing and barracks, allowing you to see a barracks all in, early expand, or fast tech path. On Shattered you can then hide the overlord on the cliff above the minerals as well to keep him safe. There's never any reason really for a zerg not to go hatch first against terran. You might die to a couple of 2 or 3 rax all ins initially, but with practice they are super easy to hold off if you scout them. 2 queens, 2 spines (built when they are leaving their base) and a bunch of lings and you are sitting pretty. So for a standard opening against terran I recommend 14-15 hatch followed by 14-17 pool (depending on how greedy/safe you feel) followed by gas when you like. Personally I prefer 16-18, but to each their own. Send your 2nd overlord to the natural to scout for bunkers while the 2nd hatch is going up. If they aren't scouted by 14, I usually 14 drone scout just to find them and see what buildings are at the front, then can pull the drone back and use a couple of lings.

• 10 scout is super early except for maybe small maps in ZvZ if you are worried about early pool play. As above, first overlord and then 14 drone if you need something to scout before the lings pop is more standard.
• 4.28: taking his gas at his natural? Funny if it’s a manner gas, but otherwise serve no purpose. Better to send it back to mining.
• Left drones on gas after starting ling speed. Generally you will pull 2 or 3 drones off unless you are going for an early roach or baneling play. And again, on 1 hatch you don’t really have the larva for such a play (you could but would be stronger with more units and slightly delayed). Then you put your second gas down before your expansion.
• 5.23: bnest going down. A good time, but consider getting an evo at the same time, that way you absolutely have it ready for spores if you get surprised by banshee, voids, or dts. 5-6 minutes is a good time. Just play a little. Hotkey your upgrading structures to make it super easy to see when they finish or when upgrades finish. Keep those upgrades rolling
• 5.39 That’s a super fast lair. Maybe if you were going for fast 2 base muta, but that’s really too fast. You could have had so many more minerals if you pulled of gas and build drones instead.
• A super common way to get the gasses and lair going is to leave 1 drone on gas after starting speed, then at 100 gas start the lair and get 2 more gas. Then get the 4th when they are half done (if you are going infestors or mutas, otherwise I prefer to only have 3 gas when using mainly ling/baneling or roach. Getting a 4th is good when doing this with upgrades though.
• 6.30: At this point you still have not scouted at all. Poke the front with a couple of lings to see the buildings and unit composition. Place overlords around his base to spot drops and vikings. Between 6 and 8 minutes is generally a good time to suicide an overlord (or overseer if you have lair) in to see what he’s doing if you are still worried about his tech. Overlord speed is an awesome upgrade btw, don’t rush for it, but get it. Always.
• 9.20: Spire finishes but you have only 300 gas. See above about lair and gas timing. You need to rethink the placement of those spores and spine at the main as well. That spore behind the mineral line can’t hit anything and that spine could be moved further our to better protect the spire from drops.
• 10.52: This is the first time you have entered his base and seen what’s what. You then kill 4 scvs for 4 mutas. Very bad trade. At this point of the game, killing scvs won’t do much, cos they can just mule, and will often at least have a 2nd base and replenish. Concentration on supply depots, reactors and tech labs, and free tanks. Mutas are designed to do damage, not take damage, so run away when he comes to get you and go attack at the other side of his base. Keep him scared and keep him guessing. Mutas are designed to buy time, not to kill him. Use the time to expand and then tech up to hive.
• You built nothing during this attack and ended up with 1K min, 760 gas and 10 larva. Macro then micro.

As I said, I didn’t watch the entire game, because the zerg could have just won as terran had nothing to defend with really. Baneling bust and rally units and it’s all over. A couple of other things I wanna mention though.

• Early on had lings sitting doing nothing for a long time. You can use 1-2 lings for map vision and have the others breaking down rocks. At bronze and silver level so many people play one base, if you are on 3 base, you will win 80% of games just from being able to replenish your army when they can’t.
• Expand like crazy as zerg, you will have too many minerals anyway before long, so it matters not in mid-game if they kill a hatch cos it was only 1 of 4.
• Particularly at bronze and silver, but even at gold and sometimes plat, if you have macro, you can a-move your army and ignore them and still win the game. I got out of bronze by spending all of my minerals, always keeping it low. I got out of silver by spending all of my gas, and getting that gas at the right time. Right now I am gold playing equally gold and plat (i've held off a master cheesing before (but still died) and I've beaten diamonds). I can see that the only thing I need to do to get to plat is spend my larva.

I really hoped that helped, to either your zerg friend or any other zerg out there. Feel free to leave any comments on things I missed or points you have a different opinion on.

Quick Comments

	Apth:	Nice analysis bro. Maybe more paragraphs and headings next time?
	ToRDeathsFang:	just because it's so long
	breadfan:	Just because the quality is top notch
	Asrathiel:	Just because you so sexy ^_^
	sRFullstop:
	cruxBsK:	this post is amazing
	nirvAnA:

[breadfan]

Sorry it took me so long, but I was caught up with the Day[9] daily (it's terran week, after all)

OK so the good news is, there's nothing out of the ordinary in your play - all the errors are completely normal and I dealt with (and am some case, am still dealing with) them myself

The first will be a bit more indepth, and the following ones will be less so, as I've tried not to repeat myself.

Shattered Temple

+ Show +

It looks like you afraid to expand to your natural, because of how vulnerable it is. However, the if you look at the map for say, Shattered Temple, you'll see that you really had it pretty secure with just your tanks on the high ground! You could have easily thrown down a bunker and built a wall of buildings to stop zerglings getting into your base.

One big thing I notice is you have a tendency to throw down buildings that you don't immediately need. I mean, you know the right buildings you want eventually, but you end up with a whole bunch of buildings with nothing producing. Basically, try to always be building out of all of your buildings. One example I want to use is your engineering bays - you threw down 2 at just after 6 minutes, and proceeded to not get any upgrades, and then you got 1 at a time, until finally you got +2/+2 together at around 22:00. Early on, those extra minerals are so important.

If I may, I'd suggest this as a rule of thumb to use, at least on your road to silver: get 3 buildings producing units. It doesn't matter which 3 - it could be 3 rax, 1rax 1fact 1 port, 2rax 1 fact, whatever. Make sure that the only time a unit isn't coming out of them is when you are building an addon. As long as you keep building SCVs at the same time, your minerals will grow - much slower than you're used to, but eventually you'll realise you can afford a command center without sacrificing a cycle of units. This is when you expand, and after your expansion gets up and running, you can afford some more buildings. Let your money time your buildings. In an ideal situation, you'll be expanding around 9:30-10:00, AND you'll have a decent size army to handle anything he'll throw at you while you expand. When you expand, move this army out. You don't need to do a big attack and lose everything. Just walk it to the front of his base, let him see it (maybe take out a building or a scouting unit), then turn around and head home. Let him think that he's up against the ropes for a change. If you get to this stage, you will start beating people in Bronze league based on build order alone.

I can tell you definitely feel vulnerable very early to baneling busts and early zergling all ins, but having walled yourself in I don't think you need the bunker, at least that early. I would suggest sending your scout earlier on 4 player maps (e.g. the SCV who finishes your first supply depot). While the bunker is a good response to that sort of all-in play, when you just throw it up blindly 'in case', you will start to run into issues.

On that note, the same thing happened with the turrets. Fortunately, mutas did come out, but you had no way of knowing when you threw down 2 behind your mineral line.

You should definitely scan your opponent's base every now and then as well - it can vary by matchup but generally at around 6:30 is a great time, as by then you will see some very clear indicators of a tech path.

I like what you tried to do with your drop harassment. Keep trying it! Especially against zerg, you can get a huge advantage if you kill drones. The thing with zerg is that with the way the build dudes (from larvae), they have to choose - either drones or units. They can't make both at the same time.

Taking the expansion where you did might have felt safe, since zerglings couldn't easily break in there, but with only the two turrest in your mineral line for defense, mutas could have killed your command centre and both your refineries without taking any damage, killed off a bunch of SCVs, and there was nothing you could have done to stop it.

Lastly, combat shield [!] is a must have vs zerg. I know stim seems amazing, but combat shield is a LOT of health. In fact, if you have combat shield and you stim, you are left with as much health on your marines as you start with. It can be a personal preference thing, but I like to get combat shield first, especially when dropping

Lastly, I know it can feel scary with a zerg who pushes out around the map, but the thing to remember is, realistically he only has about the same stuff you do (unless he wins a battle or kills a ton of workers). So don't be afraid to push out right back at him. Try to make a habit of holding the Xel'Naga towers. From there, you always have warning of when he's making a move, and you have a great point from which you can go and harass bases. Don't be afraid to go in and do a bit of damage and then turn around and go home. If you can constantly chip away at his army and sustain yours, eventually you can just walk all over him.

Xel'Naga Caverns

+ Show +

1. Probably not a good idea to attack morphing banelings with SCVs. Or any kind of melee unit, really.

Your all in looked promising (could have been better with better macro, but he was being totally greedy so you had him beat). Losing the SCVs was a huge blow. If you had kept up rallying marines forward, you could have killed him. That's not to say it was the single right decision, though!

Even in spite of your losses, I think you were in a strong position having not only done a fair amount of damage, but forced him to stop droning and make some zerglings/banelings and throw up extra spinecrawlers. Had you turned around with the marines you had, salvaged your bunker (or even left it there with a few marines in to keep him worried). Since it looks like you know your stuff, I assume you're familiar with Tastosis and the phrase "when you're ahead, get more ahead".

You went back to being quite defensive afterwards, building your command center in your own base.

You continued to do really well (his little counter punch where you kited his banelings was really nice micro, congrats), but you were let down by not having a very good economy. Sure you'd pulled a lot of SCVs for your initial push, but this really let him back into the game. He couldn't actually do anything expect make a ton of zerglings in case you attacked, but after they hatched, you were back to square one. You lost your lead.

He continued to lean on lings/banes, even after you killed off his mutas, and I liked that you continued tank production. They kept you in the game. You could have sim city'd yourself in to protect yourself a bit and used those tanks in your push.You were so concerned about being counter attacked that you gave up your best offensive weapon.

I really liked your play in this game on the whole however. You planned to attack early, and you did it. Following that (I don't know if it was confidence, the feeling that you'd done damage, or what) but you kept being assertive with your map position and making aggressive pokes. There's a great Day[9] daily where he talks about Mvp's TvZ - notably, that the way he wins is by keeping things alive. If you keep some of those units alive from your attacks, by sieging up earlier, by not focus firing buildings when you have an easy engagement to win, etc you will notice a huge improvement.

One final thing I'll say is don't forget to take medivacs! Especially when you are stimming your marines. There were too many times your marines at half health engaged and narrowly lost. That little bit extra health would have made an entirely different outcome.

Arid Plateau

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The first thing to stand out this game - he stole your gas, you have 6 marines sat at the front of your base. Why don't you kill his extractor? This is pretty crucial because as a result, you continued to go with a factory and a starport, but only had one gas. This is a huge burden on your ability to produce out of those structures.Essentially, the reason why you had no tanks out when he hit your natural at around 12:00

Again, an unnecessary double ebay

Don't prioritise upgrades over units. There isn't any point to getting siege mode when you don't have any siege tanks. Take them at the same time by all means, but if it's one or the other, opt for the units. Unsieged tanks are more useful than untanked siege mode.

Be wary of bunkers that you are finished with, get the marines out on the field and even salvage for some extra minerals (if you need them - maybe not when you are floating over a thousand). Even leave 1 marine behind for appearance. It takes a keen eye to be able to tell that it's only 1 dude in there, and many people will look at all those bunkers shooting at them and turn around.

I did like your drops and think you created a lot of opportunity for yourself that way.

Your big death ball that you moved out with would have been great, except for the orange health marines and 0 medivac count. I can't stress enough how crucial medivacs are, even a handful. With the reactored starport, it should be easy.

Tips:
- SCVs can repair buildings. So if piles of zerglings come knocking at your wall-in, don't be afraid to pull a few SCVs off minerals, throw on auto-repair and get them working on keeping the zerglings out, while your marines take care of them from a distance.
- Try using different control groups for your army. It's fine to have everything on 1 to move around, but make use of 2 for tanks, for example, so that you can more efficiently move them around, and split up some marines - have a small group of marines at the front ready to stim, and have the bulk of your marines at the back ready to run away from banelings.
- Brood lords are countered by Vikings and Ghosts. Vikings are also great for taking out overlords (which is another way to make a zerg feel like they aren't able to push out on the map)
- Don't be afraid to scan when moving across creep to kill creep tumors
- Get into the habit of expanding while pushing out, as it makes securing your expansion much easier and at least if your macro slips during micro situations (very normal), it's during the worst time economically.

So anyway, if all that seems like a lot, let me simplify. My general advice to you is: Work on getting your macro down, always producing units from all structures, make informed decisions instead of guesses, and then work on moving out on the map a bit more. Clearly you know a bit about the game so I expect a lot of the other stuff will just start happening naturally. Finally, don't get beaten by the mental game. It really got the better of you on Shattered Temple. Don't be afraid to show that zerg why every other base on the map belongs to you.

Quick Comments

	mGGDrGooSe:	Dat teamwork :P
	sRFullstop:
	cruxBsK:	what an outstanding post yeah BOI
	nirvAnA:
	FS.Kezz:

[creed]

Appreciate it . This helps me a lot, I was often strugglling with how many army production buildings do i need when i have 2 or 3 fully saturated base.

[breadfan]

Originally Posted by creed

Appreciate it . This helps me a lot, I was often strugglling with how many army production buildings do i need when i have 2 or 3 fully saturated base.

Not a problem.

It's actually a problem I face myself as a gold league player, and I've been working on it quite a lot lately. I need to stress that before having the right number of buildings, what is most important is making sure that you are constantly producing out of the ones you have. There isn't any difference in having 1 or 100 buildings if you aren't making anything out of them!

[Goldie]

vs p u shouldn't let the protoss out macro you/ get to many bases

[Moeshi]

Yeah if a protoss end up out macroing you, you can get in real trouble late game, the best way to counter this is keep something at each base and if you see him take one go ahead and take one yourself!

[IcedTea]

Those are some really good tips. They'll come handy, one day. xD

Quick Comments

Junho:

[Junho]

all this timing is so hard to remember

Quick Comments

IcedTea:

[AsylumofSouls]

Just in addition to what Goose said up there.
Until you get more comfortable with things like scouting and early pressures, I'd suggest you do what dApollo teaches and go gas + spawning pool first (14th drone) in every matchup then expand at around 18 food rather than having a different build for .
The early economy difference is not that much and isn't noticeable anyway until your other timings are perfect plus you can get the lings out if you need them for defense and to scout.