Starcraft II

[ketchup]

Watching the MLG in DC which is ongoing until the end of this weekend. Pretty sad that fellow Go player Patrick couldn't go very far this time, but there's always a next time. IdrA is in this tournament (flew all the way from Korea) and doing very well, already in the finals and waiting for the winner of the loser's bracket. Not too surprised that he's absolutely ecstatic about the roach buff and he's been using them accordingly.

Spoilers:

The finals were sadly a let down. Select played really well ALL through the loser's bracket, just to be pretty easily beat back by IdrA. It's a shame he seemed to know that he couldn't beat a Zerg player at that level. I hope the next time he participates in any tournament, he finds that Zerg practice partner. I definitely think it would make a difference. Hopefully, he does this in time for GSL Season 3.

His loser bracket games with Nony were more interesting overall. The second Huk game against Select was great too. It's nice to see players enjoying themselves in a more serious environment. On a side note though, It feels like the audience distracted Huk quite a bit. Hope they start being a bit more serious about outside influences in the tournaments here.

[Solomon]

Watching the MLG in DC which is ongoing until the end of this weekend. Pretty sad that fellow Go player Patrick couldn't go very far this time, but there's always a next time. IdrA is in this tournament (flew all the way from Korea) and doing very well, already in the finals and waiting for the winner of the loser's bracket. Not too surprised that he's absolutely ecstatic about the roach buff and he's been using them accordingly.

Spoilers:

The finals were sadly a let down. Select played really well ALL through the loser's bracket, just to be pretty easily beat back by IdrA. It's a shame he seemed to know that he couldn't beat a Zerg player at that level. I hope the next time he participates in any tournament, he finds that Zerg practice partner. I definitely think it would make a difference. Hopefully, he does this in time for GSL Season 3.

His loser bracket games with Nony were more interesting overall. The second Huk game against Select was great too. It's nice to see players enjoying themselves in a more serious environment. On a side note though, It feels like the audience distracted Huk quite a bit. Hope they start being a bit more serious about outside influences in the tournaments here.

As much credit as SeleCT deserves for going through so many sets like that, I still didn't like how he won all of his games with pretty much 2 units. I just felt bored watching his play...at least qxc was more aggressive and utilized dropships more.

And HuK just gained a ton of fans for his game 2. Personally I wish they had at least invested in sound-proof booths like the GSL...the crowd shouldn't affect the tournament like that imo. Nonetheless, I was highly entertained.

[Tooveli]

Played a fun FFA where I eliminated my opponents in alphabetical order and only made one unit which I announced at the start.
So hard to beat flying buildings and mutalisks and broodlords with only Zealots (and lots and lots of cannons) but managed it in the end.
It won't upload to replayfu - anyone know of anywhere else I can put it?

[Solomon]

Played a fun FFA where I eliminated my opponents in alphabetical order and only made one unit which I announced at the start.
So hard to beat flying buildings and mutalisks and broodlords with only Zealots (and lots and lots of cannons) but managed it in the end.
It won't upload to replayfu - anyone know of anywhere else I can put it?

There's http://www.sc2replayed.com/ but imo it's a bit overkill for its purpose.

Btw sorry we couldn't get a game yesterday; I was playing a team game then. Hopefully your trial still has enough hours left.

[yoyoma]

Anyone going to MLG Dallas? I'm in Austin and I'll probably drive up for Sunday at least. Looks like passes to play are still not sold out, if they aren't sold out near the event I might get one (Gold player in MLG gogogo!)

[Solomon]

Anyone going to MLG Dallas? I'm in Austin and I'll probably drive up for Sunday at least. Looks like passes to play are still not sold out, if they aren't sold out near the event I might get one (Gold player in MLG gogogo!)

Nice...I won't be able to make it, but Patrick might be there...maybe play a game of Go with him amidst the gamer crowd for Go publicity perhaps?

And oh, GSL S2 first ro64 games are starting in 4 hours at the time of this posting (2:00am PST)...notably, Terran legend Boxer, GSL S1 champ FruitDealer, and awesome cannon-rusher Inca will be playing . It's going to be epicccccccc.

Also, I started laddering on the 1v1 again feeling confident in my 8-finger play from all the custom games. I did surprisingly well and won 9/11 of my games against mostly 1200-1600 players, cheesing only about 2 of my games (Inca's cannon rush in a PvP, and a lot+cannon rush I learned from incontrol's game against machine in g1). I may end up being better with 8 fingers than 9 .

And oh, regarding my finger - I took out (carefully) about 30% of the scab, basically the areas I knew for sure wouldn't bleed if I were to remove. Unfortunately, there's this strange piece of what I think is tissue that was underneath the scab that's now awkwardly dangling out. I'm reallllllly tempted to just cut it off, but if I touch it it's super-sensitive and it just feels like bad aji for me to cut so for now it's just chilling there, dangling in all its glory. I look at my finger every day and am just awed by how the human body can heal by itself, I feel like Cell from DBZ.

[CSamurai]

So, I play protoss. Generally I play a 4 gate, with a push at about 8-9 minutes, transitioning into whatever weakness the push reveals (collosus vs mass marines, void rays vs turtles, etc etc).

Aside from the cannon rushes, (which I haven't ever bothered to practice) what is considered to be Cheese for protoss? Am I cheesing my way to victory with my 4 gate 10 unit splat rush?

Also, why did my game mix go from about 2/3 protoss to about 2/3 terran? I still don't see any zerg in bronze, even after the patch.

This tactic has allowed me to shoot up to third in my league. I'm trying to focus on my macro, and keep from being supply blocked. It's somewhat terrifying, taking my initial push out, because I'm often taking it out /right after/ warping the last 4 units in, leaving me preeeety much defenseless! I go for a mix of stalkers and zs, and try to work the group so that the z's charge up the ramp first.

Not surprisingly, people who wall off have a much better chance of blocking my initial rush, and often I lose in the longer games because I'm not so good at teching up, in spite of a significant lead in army strength. I have noticed that VRs are much less useful against anything but pure ground and pound mech builds. The one place I still aim for VRs early is in PvP against someone I know is dropping out cannons. A group of VRs with a few immortals can eat pylons for breakfast.

And, flying the VRs around to the back door and picking off probes is highly effective.

Had a fun game today where I lost to a guy who went pure battle cruiser. Pretty embarassing, since I started out by destroying his main, but terrans are slippery, and by the time I built my airforce, he had a /crapload/ of battle cruisers.

Really really frustrated that somehow I missed his second command center flying over my expansion on the way to the place it landed, but hey, it was an amusing game.

Is silver harder than bronze? Every once in a while, I'll find myself challenged in bronze league, but.. uh.. yeah, I've got a 50% win rate in spite of my occasional 'too tired to play' 10 game losing streak binge.

Lesson of the week:
Sometimes, you should just quit playing for the night. Even if you want to get 'just one win'.

[Solomon]

So, I play protoss. Generally I play a 4 gate, with a push at about 8-9 minutes, transitioning into whatever weakness the push reveals (collosus vs mass marines, void rays vs turtles, etc etc).

Aside from the cannon rushes, (which I haven't ever bothered to practice) what is considered to be Cheese for protoss? Am I cheesing my way to victory with my 4 gate 10 unit splat rush?

A 4-gate off 1 base won't leave you room to be building probes and using all 4 gates to output units at the same time, so if you're 4-gating and efficiently using those 4 gates, then it can be considered an all-in because of the hit you're taking on your economy at the prospect of committing to what will hopefully be a successful push. Unless you did a ton of damage with a failed push (though then it wouldn't really be "failed"), you will be behind.

However, at the same time I wouldn't classify it as cheese because while it does take a hit to your economy, it doesn't ruin it as much as, say, a 6-pool. Unless you're at a top level, it's much easier to recover from a failed 4-gate rush than it is from a 6-pool, kind of like how it's much easier to recover from a 20 point deficit in the mid-game if you're a kyu player versus if you're a high dan.

And regarding Protoss cheese, the strategies that come to mind are:

1. Proxy 2/3 gate
2. Cannon rush
3. Korean 4-gate

[CSamurai]

I don't know how efficient it is. Often, I 4 gate, build up abotu 10-20 units, then toss them at the enemy. Since I'm kinda OCD about paying attention to fights (I uh.. get distracted easily by the 'we're under attack' sound effect.) I tend to have enough cash to build more workers and make my expansion and transition into immortals/collosi/voidrays.

Am I hurting myself by trying to straddle the road with a 4 gate? I often have as good or better economy compared to my opponent, even with my 4gate rush. Of course, my opponents generally.. well. They're bronze.

On my second day a guy laughed at me after rolling me up with M&M balls, informing me I sucked. He had over 500 games, and was in bronze, I really hope he's earned his promotion by now. It makes me wonder, am I really getting any better, or am I just playing against a whole lot of really new players? I look forward to playing in silver. Maybe then I'll at least be able to pretend I win for reasons other than the fact that my opponents are terrible.

[Suji]

So, I play protoss. Generally I play a 4 gate, with a push at about 8-9 minutes, transitioning into whatever weakness the push reveals (collosus vs mass marines, void rays vs turtles, etc etc).

Aside from the cannon rushes, (which I haven't ever bothered to practice) what is considered to be Cheese for protoss? Am I cheesing my way to victory with my 4 gate 10 unit splat rush?

Also, why did my game mix go from about 2/3 protoss to about 2/3 terran? I still don't see any zerg in bronze, even after the patch.

This tactic has allowed me to shoot up to third in my league. I'm trying to focus on my macro, and keep from being supply blocked. It's somewhat terrifying, taking my initial push out, because I'm often taking it out /right after/ warping the last 4 units in, leaving me preeeety much defenseless! I go for a mix of stalkers and zs, and try to work the group so that the z's charge up the ramp first.

Not surprisingly, people who wall off have a much better chance of blocking my initial rush, and often I lose in the longer games because I'm not so good at teching up, in spite of a significant lead in army strength. I have noticed that VRs are much less useful against anything but pure ground and pound mech builds. The one place I still aim for VRs early is in PvP against someone I know is dropping out cannons. A group of VRs with a few immortals can eat pylons for breakfast.

And, flying the VRs around to the back door and picking off probes is highly effective.

Had a fun game today where I lost to a guy who went pure battle cruiser. Pretty embarassing, since I started out by destroying his main, but terrans are slippery, and by the time I built my airforce, he had a /crapload/ of battle cruisers.

Really really frustrated that somehow I missed his second command center flying over my expansion on the way to the place it landed, but hey, it was an amusing game.

Is silver harder than bronze? Every once in a while, I'll find myself challenged in bronze league, but.. uh.. yeah, I've got a 50% win rate in spite of my occasional 'too tired to play' 10 game losing streak binge.

Lesson of the week:
Sometimes, you should just quit playing for the night. Even if you want to get 'just one win'.

My friend pointed out this 4-gate strategy to me, and I've liked it so far after one day. I was playing a Terran, and after my initial push discovered that he was going MMM. So I built Colossi, Carriers, and Stalkers. He went MMM, Viking, and Siege Tank. He comes and attacks my rich mineral expansion at the bottom of Blistering Sands with pretty much everything he's got, and everything gets wiped out except several of my Stalkers. So, I build a row of pylons near the back door of his base and pump out 16 Zealots, 16 Stalkers, a few Colossi (I think), and 3 Carriers and leveled his main and two expansions before he quit.

I've found that Stalkers, Colossi, and Carriers are a potent and potentially lethal combination. I went that in my last game against Terran. I apparently did more damage than I thought, since after he wiped out my first wave and I had to build more units because they all died, he didn't come in and attack my base. Instead he had to apparently expand and train more units and after 10 minutes he couldn't handle 8 Colossi, 9 Carriers, and several Stalkers.

[hirohiigo]

So, I play protoss. Generally I play a 4 gate, with a push at about 8-9 minutes, transitioning into whatever weakness the push reveals (collosus vs mass marines, void rays vs turtles, etc etc).

Aside from the cannon rushes, (which I haven't ever bothered to practice) what is considered to be Cheese for protoss? Am I cheesing my way to victory with my 4 gate 10 unit splat rush?

A 4-gate off 1 base won't leave you room to be building probes and using all 4 gates to output units at the same time, so if you're 4-gating and efficiently using those 4 gates, then it can be considered an all-in because of the hit you're taking on your economy at the prospect of committing to what will hopefully be a successful push. Unless you did a ton of damage with a failed push (though then it wouldn't really be "failed"), you will be behind.

However, at the same time I wouldn't classify it as cheese because while it does take a hit to your economy, it doesn't ruin it as much as, say, a 6-pool. Unless you're at a top level, it's much easier to recover from a failed 4-gate rush than it is from a 6-pool, kind of like how it's much easier to recover from a 20 point deficit in the mid-game if you're a kyu player versus if you're a high dan.

And regarding Protoss cheese, the strategies that come to mind are:

1. Proxy 2/3 gate
2. Cannon rush
3. Korean 4-gate

4 gate, if used properly, isn't meant to be an all-in game ender where you gg after he blocks your push. The point of a 4 gate is to buy time for an expansion and get an early contain to delay their expansion. It's certainly not economically possible to sustain a 4 gate push, by doing the initial 4 gate push and expanding at the same time, you recover the economy hit because you'll have tons more money coming in than your opponent. Once you're on 2 bases, having 4 warpgates isn't such a big deal.

And then it just goes into standard play from there since with a proper response your opponent will be able to take out your proxy pylon after not too long.

[Solomon]

So, I play protoss. Generally I play a 4 gate, with a push at about 8-9 minutes, transitioning into whatever weakness the push reveals (collosus vs mass marines, void rays vs turtles, etc etc).

Aside from the cannon rushes, (which I haven't ever bothered to practice) what is considered to be Cheese for protoss? Am I cheesing my way to victory with my 4 gate 10 unit splat rush?

A 4-gate off 1 base won't leave you room to be building probes and using all 4 gates to output units at the same time, so if you're 4-gating and efficiently using those 4 gates, then it can be considered an all-in because of the hit you're taking on your economy at the prospect of committing to what will hopefully be a successful push. Unless you did a ton of damage with a failed push (though then it wouldn't really be "failed"), you will be behind.

However, at the same time I wouldn't classify it as cheese because while it does take a hit to your economy, it doesn't ruin it as much as, say, a 6-pool. Unless you're at a top level, it's much easier to recover from a failed 4-gate rush than it is from a 6-pool, kind of like how it's much easier to recover from a 20 point deficit in the mid-game if you're a kyu player versus if you're a high dan.

And regarding Protoss cheese, the strategies that come to mind are:

1. Proxy 2/3 gate
2. Cannon rush
3. Korean 4-gate

4 gate, if used properly, isn't meant to be an all-in game ender where you gg after he blocks your push. The point of a 4 gate is to buy time for an expansion and get an early contain to delay their expansion. It's certainly not economically possible to sustain a 4 gate push, by doing the initial 4 gate push and expanding at the same time, you recover the economy hit because you'll have tons more money coming in than your opponent. Once you're on 2 bases, having 4 warpgates isn't such a big deal.

And then it just goes into standard play from there since with a proper response your opponent will be able to take out your proxy pylon after not too long.

Again, when you make 4 gates, you have to cut probe production to be building units from all 4 gates...so if you're buying time to expand, it's better to do so with 3 gates instead (and 3 gate expand is common). If you're trying to expand after failing a 4-gate push, you won't have enough probes to transfer to the natural. The point of a 4-gate is not to contain or to buy time for an expo, it really is to try and end the game right there. Anything else is a matter of recovery.

[Tooveli]

I was practising my Zerg in some free games and happened to join a lobby with mouzMaNa. I checked his profile and he was 2000+ diamond. I decided to switch back to Protoss. It obviously wasn't him playing and I managed to win the game. Still, looks good in my match list

[CSamurai]

Arg. Soooo, so frustrating. Maintenance Tuesday, OK, Yeah, I get it, we'd like our servers not to melt down into flaming buggy balls of doom... but since they've tied battle.net to everything, now I can't even log on to the forums, or look up my character to see how many slots I fell on my ranking while I was at work.

Bleh.

Way to lock me out of everything game related.

Go Blizavision.

[hirohiigo]

A 4-gate off 1 base won't leave you room to be building probes and using all 4 gates to output units at the same time, so if you're 4-gating and efficiently using those 4 gates, then it can be considered an all-in because of the hit you're taking on your economy at the prospect of committing to what will hopefully be a successful push. Unless you did a ton of damage with a failed push (though then it wouldn't really be "failed"), you will be behind.

However, at the same time I wouldn't classify it as cheese because while it does take a hit to your economy, it doesn't ruin it as much as, say, a 6-pool. Unless you're at a top level, it's much easier to recover from a failed 4-gate rush than it is from a 6-pool, kind of like how it's much easier to recover from a 20 point deficit in the mid-game if you're a kyu player versus if you're a high dan.

And regarding Protoss cheese, the strategies that come to mind are:

1. Proxy 2/3 gate
2. Cannon rush
3. Korean 4-gate

4 gate, if used properly, isn't meant to be an all-in game ender where you gg after he blocks your push. The point of a 4 gate is to buy time for an expansion and get an early contain to delay their expansion. It's certainly not economically possible to sustain a 4 gate push, by doing the initial 4 gate push and expanding at the same time, you recover the economy hit because you'll have tons more money coming in than your opponent. Once you're on 2 bases, having 4 warpgates isn't such a big deal.

And then it just goes into standard play from there since with a proper response your opponent will be able to take out your proxy pylon after not too long.

Again, when you make 4 gates, you have to cut probe production to be building units from all 4 gates...so if you're buying time to expand, it's better to do so with 3 gates instead (and 3 gate expand is common). If you're trying to expand after failing a 4-gate push, you won't have enough probes to transfer to the natural. The point of a 4-gate is not to contain or to buy time for an expo, it really is to try and end the game right there. Anything else is a matter of recovery.

I've never had a problem keeping up with probe production during a 4 gate. I may not be a master at macro, but I've never had a problem like you described where I don't have enough probes to transfer. All you need is 1-2 sentries to keep your opponent contained in their base since you can just forcefield your ramp.

I don't know where you learned 4 gate from, but past bronze you're not supposed to use it as an early win.

Unless you're Korean 4 Gating.