[faithHunter]

Originally Posted by FoAPrometheus

TvT is a dog's breakfast when it comes to openings. There are so many variations, so scouting is paramount. With your scouting scv check his gas to see how hard he's teching. No gas means all-in (check marine count) or fast expand (keep scv at back of his natural). 1 gas is usually light tech like stim or hellions, 2 gas can mean hard tech like siege tanks or banshee. You should scan at about 6 minutes (which can be accomplished with the first 50 energy from your FE orbital). The 6 minute scan gives you enough time to respond to whatever your opponent is doing. If you see nothing useful with scan, play it safe by throwing down an engie bay and a bunker.
After the terrifying early game, the safe midgame is tank/marine/medivac with upgrades. Make sure you keep tabs on your opponent's army so they don't get a good position on any of your bases, while you should try to get good positions on their bases. From then on it's an expansion war.

It depends on the map too actually. At large maps like TDA, Entombed, etc. people usually just go FE and then it transitions to who has the better engagements, map control and expansions. At least, that's what I've seen on Gold league. I don't know exactly what people do in higher leagues, but from what I've seen from pro games is more or less the same thing that I'm seeing on Gold, except obviously they executes it far far better than the Gold league guys.

Anyway, most TvT aggressive (but non-all in) openers are either Reaper FE or variations of 1-1-1 such as Banshee to Marine Tank contain, Marine Hellion elevator, or maybe even Hellion drops. Always scout, scan at 6:30 and see what tech is he taking and always keep control of watchtowers.

After you've gotten through the tedious early-mid game phase, congratulations. You are about to play the amazing matchup known as TvT that involves intense decision making, multitasking and micromanagement so that you can come out on top.