Esports & Computer Security Blog. For SC2 tournaments see clocks immediately below. Starts with Korean time at upper left, moves west around the world till you end with PDT/PST clock for Anaheim USA. I earn a small referral fee if you click the occasional Amazon links and then purchase item. It does not affect the purchase price. For more information see "Amazon Associates" link below & left of clocks.
So for those who don't know me I've been a professional Starcraft 2 gamer for a year. Even if I didn't take any major tournament title I've been able to win a good amount of prize money; enough to have a reason for making this thread.
During this one year I noticed there's an huge issue many people are not aware of and I would like to bring it to public attention. The problem is very simple: when you win money on Starcraft 2 tournaments there's a good chance you will have to wait for several months to get it or, in worst case, you will not get it at all. This applies to big tournaments but also small weekly cups. Of course there are exceptions to this but so far my experience has been very negative and I'm still waiting for a sum of around 6000$.
No Kings of Tin tonight to compete with Nanman, so go watch!
Tonights game (T)VileIllusion vs (P)desRow!
What: NanMan's Anniversary Special (tentative event name) When: Oct 31- Nov 4 @ 8:00pm/20:00 EST/EDT Showmatch Players: (T)VileIllusion vs (P)desRow; (T)Gimix vs (Z)ViBE; (P)Time vs (Z)Sheth; (P)Minigun vs (T)qxc; (T)Drewbie vs (T)Pokebunny ||| Stream http://www.twitch.tv/therealnanman & VODhttp://www.youtube.com/NanMan ||| More Info
From http://www.teamliquid.net/calendar/2011/10/#event_6955
The second week of Playhem's showmatch series brings three great matches: Liquid`TLO vs White-Ra, Liquid`Sheth vs GoSuDDE, and coLCatZ vs GoSuPokebunny! Be sure to tune in this Sunday for three epic best of 7s between some of the biggest names in eSports!
One of the most valuable concepts I ever learned in a class that I paid for, was the idea of Modeling, also know as Observational Learning.
Now this class was focused on learning physical skills, think sports, so they had a slightly different interpretation than the psychology link above. They strongly suggested getting personal instruction from an expert, in part because it is more efficient to learn something right the first time, than learn it "wrong" and then have to relearn the skill correctly.
Watching a highly skilled professional demonstrate something would also allow you to pick up many small nuances that words often fail to encompass, or that a skilled person doesn't even think about any more (i.e. Unconscious Competence) so they fail to mention those nuances.
In addition to, or in place of, if you were unable to get professional instruction, they suggested watching a lot of video of top level people. They also urged plenty of practice.
An old study of Racquetball or Tennis players was mentioned, where using high speed film it was discovered that skilled players were actually responding to were the ball was going to go, before their opponent had even hit the ball!
Eventually it was determined that the skilled players could tell subconsciously, or perhaps pattern recognition would be better term i.e. they had seen it before and recognized what was possible, were the ball was going to go from their opponents body positioning, momentum, and similar elements.
The idea is that we learn many things by seeing something and trying to imitated it, often on the subconscious level.
I remember Tasteless, commenting one time that someone had asked him why he boxed the workers constantly, the way many skilled SC2 players do, and he really didn't know why he did it. He said something like, "just habit I guess".
I think this was a case of Unconscious Competence, he did something correct without thinking about it!
Boxing workers does a few good things, it keeps you focused on how many workers you have, so you keep constantly making more workers. A critical, though basic, skill in Starcraft 2, but it also provides practice of a critical skill. The skill of boxing, a lot of micro skills, like splitting Marines, relies on boxing.
So even if you don't know why you should do the seemly pointless boxing of workers, you would benefit from it if you just started copying a high skill player that did it.
It seems to me to work a lot better to pick one or at most two skilled players to watch in a conscious attempt to model. I like to watch WhiteRa, Protoss is my main race, andStephano, since Zerg is my off race. Since I coach and blog I also watch Goody, for Mech centered Terran play, and Drewbie for bio/drop centered Terran play. Those are the players I focus on for game play modeling.
For Deep understanding of the game I watch Thundertoss. Day9 is also excellent for this, but Thundertoss' perspective of the game fits me better than Day9's.
So one of the things you can do to improve, is to watch a skilled person perform. The only difference between this and watching them because you enjoy their play, is that you strive to focus on the game. Focus on it as hard as you can, if you feel a little tired after watching your preferred Pro Gamer play, like you would after driving a car in a Blizzard, word play intended, then your doing it right.
Finally it is Official!! See below for the whole scoop! Note the World Clocks at top of Blog for easy time zone conversions, EST=EDT for time zones. Everything below this is NanMan's words from his TL post!
As some of you may know, I am the founder of the LXG clan, as well as an up-and-coming Starcraft II caster. I began casting in November 2010 and in honor of the one-year anniversary of my start of casting, I am hosting a series of show matches to take place the first week of November.
Dates and Times:
October 31st-November 4th 8pm EST
This is a 5 day event with 1 show match taking place each night.
Prize Pool:
Each show match will be played for $50 in a winner takes all format. The total prize pool is $250 for the week.
Format and Map Pool:
Each show match will be a best of five series.
The map pool will be MLG maps with the loser picking the next map.
Game 1 will start on Metalopolis
MLG Shakuras Plateau
MLG Shattered Temple
MLG Tal’darim Altar
MLG Antiga Shipyard
MLG Dual Sight
MLG Metalopolis
MLG Xel’Naga Caverns
Players:
desRow
ePGimix
Vile Illusion
Its Gosu Pokebunny
Its Gosu ViBE
Infinity Seven Time
Complexity Minigun
Complexity Drewbie
FXO qxc
Liquid Sheth
I have 8 player confirmed for next weeks event! Still waiting to hear from @coL_CatZ and @Steven_Bonnell T_T Will post up about event soon!
NanMan is planning a big event to mark the One Year Anniversary of his Casting Career, I think I can safely say, since he has tweeted this, that he is planning a bunch of show matches!
NanMan is an up and coming Caster, he is really good, I prefer his casting to some of the currently established casters.
You can follow me @CliffsEsport or here of course. If your browser doesn't provide easy access to RSS, there is subscription widget at bottom of the blog, also an email subscription widget at bottom of blog for those that prefer email.
It is that time again! Come join @Ayesee, @Redmagejr, @z33k_DoomsVille, & the rest of us!
See Top of my blog for world Clocks for easy time zone conversions.
z33k.com is proud to present the 2v2 Masters Weekly series! In partnership with Complexity Gaming and Origin PC we will be bringing you a $50 prize pool for Masters level 2v2 teams every week! With the new ladder maps in play prepare for some epic 2v2 games.
MillStephano vs mouzMana in the Grandfinals! This is a Bo5, cast by Khaldor & Doa!
Important note: Stephano & Mana are practice partners! This is important for two reasons: 1) The comments, banter really, between players will sound like real BM if you don't know they are friends. 2) MaNa should know as well as anyone how to play vs Stephano's style of play!
Ever think that Terran Tier 1 units, especially Bio, are Over Powered? If you do you have a lot of company in that opinion.
But Day9, <3 Day9, doesn't agree with Imbalance talk. I don't either, there are certainly difference trade offs between the races, which fits the meaning of Imbalance as it is used in Chess (ie one side might trade material for position), but that is more of a Yin/Yang balance than one side being Over Powered.
Strong play comes from how you combine various elements (units, economy, upgrades, spells, timing, position, space, etc) of the game together. Just like good cooking, you need to know what your making, say a cake or bread, so you can assemble the correct ingredients in the proper amounts. Also with skill, comes the ability to improvise.
Beginners try to make just the right single unit to win, which is like trying to make Cookies with just flour, yuck! As players gain skill they start combining units, eggs/flour/sugar/butter mmm good cookies! Sometime after that they start to realize benefit of economy, upgrades, positioning, and timing, I could continue the cooking idea but I think the cookies are done (I wonder if Artosis will read this?).
The next level beyond that is realizing that your opening or play style will affect what your opponent will do during the entire game, if they are good. And you start to take advantage of that element of gaming. So if you feed them pretzels or nuts, they are going to drink more Beer!
Embedded VOD is an excellent old cast (BETA!) by Day9 that illustrates this. Link to part 2 or whole episode on Day's Blip Channel Pt1 & Pt2, my thoughts and comments are below the VOD:
What actually makes Bio strong is a Tier 3 unit, the Medivac!
How strong would stimmed bio be without Medivacs? Every Stim costs Marines 10 HP and costs Maruaders 20 HP!
I think Terran is an easier Race to figure out good, strong unit compositions, and Bio + Medivac is a great example of this. Terrans drop more than Protoss & Zerg combined. Despite have the most expensive Transport unit! In other words a Terran losing a Medivac loses more than a Toss losing a Warp Prism or Zerg losing an Overlord.
We all know that gas is a lot harder to get in SC2 than minerals, but how do you compare the cost of a 100 mineral/100 gas Medivac to a 200 mineral/0 gas Warp Prism? I like to look at the mining rate of a base, ignoring mules, a saturated base will pull in ~750 minerals a minutes and ~230-240 gas a minutes.
So in rough terms (rounding gas to 250/minute) 1 unit of gas is worth 3 units of minerals, nerds/geeks like Artosis & Crota should like this metric. That means a 100 mineral/100 gas Medivac=400 minerals, but it is really worth more than that of course, because there is far less gas on any map than minerals.
So economically they should be dropping the least! But Cliff, you moron, the Medivac is a Tier 3 unit and heals in addition to being a Transport, that is part of what makes Terran drops strong. It is also a Force Multiplier, which means adding a Medivac multiplies the Combat Power of a Bio Army, rather than adding to the combat power.
A basic principle of combat, and SC2 is a war game, is to attack the enemies weakness, not their strength.
Couple of the reasons why it is a basic principle are, it is more likely to succeed (ie Good Odds), & you can use less Combat Strength, so maybe you can attack more than one place at a time, since your only using a little of my force. Also since attacking a weak point requires less force, it can be done faster!
So how do you apply this, well a tactical or unit composition focused player might say lets make a Starport before Robo, and harass with Phoenix. Or make Starport at same time as Robo Support bay and start pumping Phoenix to snipe Medivacs. Or get HT to feedback all the Medivacs. I think those are good ideas, and I plan to cover them in the future.
But I want you to consider some other ideas. Besides Medivacs what are the main units that Terran use to combat a standard Protoss Deathball, once the Toss player gets a deathball? Right! Vikings!
So what about crippling Medivac and Viking production before it even gets started?
How? Focus down Reactors and Refineries, with Drops!
Get Warp Prism Speed upgrade, either before or after Thermal lance. Thundertoss likes to point out that almost all Protoss let one or more Nexus (Nexi?) get to 100% Chrono energy by 10-11 minutes. So use Chorno on both these upgrades, as well as the forge upgrades. That is one of the major Race Imbalances, in the Yin/Yang sense, that they have. USE IT! Toss should be able to get faster upgrades than Terran or Zerg.
While a Reactor only has 400 HP, and a Refinery 500 HP. It would be nice to kill Starports, but they have 1300 HP, which would take way to long to kill with a drop.
So if your tempted to do Immortal drops, focus on the Reactor or Refinery first.
You can use zealots on Refineries, there is usually more surface area for Zealots on Refineries than there is on Reactors. Or Zealot + Immortal will be strong and fast at killing either.
I like Zealot drops, that way your only risking Minerals on your Drops. Plus with this approach your risking only Mineral units, to limit the production of gas heavy units.
Even better IMO, and my favorite, is to combine DT's either on the ground or from another Warp prism with the Zealot drops. DT's with +1 attack upgrade, will 4 shot a Reactor (okay it will have 8 HP left because of armor but it will be burning, and who sends SCV's towarads DT to repair?), they will 5 shot a Refinery (Okay 10 HP left with armor).
I prefer some kind of DT openings in general, not always DT rush, because it forces Terran into a different game plan. And if they don't have enough flexibility in their standard game play, it will actually throw off their timings. Which create more weakness you can exploit.
Just like WhiteRa's build, showcased by Day9 in the VOD above, where he goes fast Voidray to force marines. I go DT to force detection, in addition to throwing Terran's timings off, it weakens their army vs Protoss Deathball. Resources spent on Detection can't be spent on fighting units.
If you follow through with the plan to focus down Reactors and Refineries with drops and harassing Expos, they will never be able to get many Medivacs or Vikings.
Though not many people realize it yet, DT's are actually very strong in the entire game. In the beginning enemy needs detection in a hurry, or they auto lose to DT.
After that phase, were many people think DT are weak, they are actually still quite strong. Just in indirect ways, they let you delay making Observers since they scouted when they attacked. They also deny enemy control of Xel Naga Towers, unless they burn a scan or use a Raven. They also slow down or raise the cost of the enemy scouting you, since DT 1 shot scouting Marines or SCV. Kinda forces a scan for scouting or flying Factory.
Also every Scan that is used for detection or saved for detection is worth ~270 minerals. So if initial DT harass forces them to burn one Scan and save a 2nd one till they get turrets up, you have cost them ~540 minerals they were expecting really quickly with those fast mining mules.
Combined with the delayed expansions, expos have to wait for detection, DT's actually hurt enemy ecnomoy a lot. Because of that, you need to be prepared for an all in attack as a response to your initial DT attack.
Later on when you can afford 5-8 DT's you can use them to snipe Buildings very quickly.
5 DT with +1 Attack will two shot Refineries! So 5 DT hits quad can easily snipe refineries at an Expo, even if it is a PF. It will take 3 shots for PF to kill DT and shields will take the first two, something to remember for PvT on Xel Naga Caverns! 6 DT with +1 Attack will 5 shot a Orbital or PF. Orbitals that lift can't scan either.
A stimmed Marauder has a DPS vs Armored units (including buildings) of 20DPS. A +1 Attack DT has 29.6 DPS. Remember Stimm is an upgrade, same price as Toss +1 Attack, but stim takes 10 more seconds to finish. So for killing buildings +1 Attack 3 DT>4 Stimmed Maruaders 88.8 vs 80. So the 6 DT mentioned above for sniping Orbitals or PF is like 8.88 (ie almost 9!) Stimmed Marauders.
Remember what I said about how the more elements you combine the stronger your play will be?
Well I am suggesting using DT to limit production of Medivacs & Vikings, while simultaneously forcing the opponent to spend money on an Ebay + Turrets and/or a Raven, plus have to burn or save at least 1 or 2 Scans that would normally be 270 minerals each from mules.
I will also use those DT to delay enemy scouting and defend against pokes.
The attack upgrades that you need for the Deathball will also greatly increase the power of the DT's, plus not only are the DT a Gateway unit, so they can be warped in quickly to remax, but they are the highest DPS unit Protoss has, especially at +3 attack (35.6 DPS!), they are also perhaps the best Protoss unit to use in small numbers or unsupported by other units.
So combined with Warp Prisms, that you have been using all game long, they allow for backstab attacks almost instantly after trading armies. Also the Vikings that Terran needs to deal with Colossus, generally speaking, will be almost worthless against them. DT are also very good at defending Terran drops, they one shot Marines & 3 Shot Marauders. A Marauder needs 12+ shots to kill a DT. Remember Units unload at 1 per second from Transports, so a pair of DT can kill units about as fast as they drop.
Now this does require a bit more active play style than many Protoss are used to, your cutting a few of the Zealots and Sentries to make the DT. So you need to be attacking Terran, not baiting them to attack and Force Fielding them for the Zealots to kill. But it is actually safer to mess up an attack than a defense, because if an attack fails, you just trade units. If a defense fails you take real damage.
Also note, not relying on the DT to win. I am not even looking at making that many, 2-3 early in the game (keep them alive if possible), then add 3-5 more later on, for a total of 5-8 DT (though may make more late game say after trading Armies). But I think DT's provide an option that is harder for Terran to counter than Colossus (herp derp Vikings) or HT (hmm lets Spam EMP). I also want to point out that you DON'T want to make Archons! Archons/Immortal/Zealot can be okay vs some Toss builds, if they don't respond correctly. And 1 or 2 Archons are okay against Protoss to break Forcefields. Archons added to Zealots are very good vs Zerglings. But they are absolutely horrible vs any ranged unit, because their own range is so short.
So there are some thoughts for you.
Certainly needs work and polish. But Protoss have been having so much problems lately I thought they might consider trying something new. Who knows it might even work. :D
[updated 06/21/2012]
[updated 11/17/11 with more names]
Mods and Admins do a lot of hard work, and seldom get the recognition or appreciation they deserve.
Without all the hard work they do, we wouldn't be able to enjoy the awesomeness of Esports as much as we do.
So I am sending out a big thank you & a big <3 to all the Admins & Mods out there that keep chaos from ruining Esports!
I am also asking you, to please take the time to say thanks to an Admin or Mod the next time your in a chat, it will mean a lot to them. Most of time they are working for free or a token wage, that positive feedback might encourage them enough, that they keep doing their hard work.
I have started two lists of the admins and mods that I know so far, first one is of the ones for which I know their Twitter addresses. So you can send them a message of appreciation if you want to. I am new to Twitter so if I messed up or missed something I apologize in advance. The second list is for admins and Mods that I don't have a Twitter address for.
I want to expand this to include every Mod or Admin possible, so please Tweet me @CliffsEsport, or comment on this post, and I will update this post with additional names.
Finally I was awake when he started streaming though I was getting ready for bead, think he lives on Korean time to watch GSL, he was kind enough to answer all the questions from Chat.
Thanks Thundertoss, I know you won't always have the time for it.
"To enter for your chance to face coL.MVP DongRaeGu, follow the instructions below: 1. Like Sound Blaster Gaming on Facebook
2. Tweet this message
3. Leave a comment here. (Click 'Enter to Play DongRaeGu' for the comments section) compLexity's CatZ and Naniwa will also be on hand streaming live all weekend from the Sound Blaster booth where coL.SC2 along with Jason Lake and Jason Bass will be providing you with the opportunity to win headsets and compLexity gear. For those that can't be in attendance, prizes will also be given away live on stream so be sure to tune in!" ~compLexity
I'll open this post with a quote from a Starcraft 2 Blog I just discovered today from Baby Toss, please check her Blog out:
Crisis management/Dealing with stress
I easily dip into 'panic' mode. I see a drop for which I have no defence in my base for, I get into battle which I think I can't win, I know my opponent's ahead and that I need to expand... could go on with examples. I need to learn how to relax, to give myself an opportunity to calm down and think clearly about the situation at hand. A lot of mistakes stem from the fact that I get 'tunnel-vision' and make wrong decisions, which in the end cost me the game. ~BabyToss
Just so you know where I am coming from with this, I have a deep background in Chess and Martial Arts.
Martial Arts, and other Self Defense skills, have far more overlap with Strategy Games than most people realize.
Both TBS (Turn Based Strategy) games like Chess and RTS (Real Time Strategy) games like SC2, require Situational Awareness, Fear/Stress Control, Tactics, and Strategy just like Martial Arts do.
The two main techniques IME for controlling Fear and/or Stress are Breath Control and Habituation/Desensitizing.
Breath Control is simply making sure you breath deeply, smoothly, and not to fast. Panic breathing is short and shallow. They teach Cops, firefighters, Pilots, and solders to control their breathing as a way to manage stress under life and death situations. It will work for playing Starcraft 2 as well as for flying a F-16.
Habituation just means that you get bored with something because it happens so often, it just isn't exciting in either good or bad way anymore. If you have ever listened to a favorite song so much you didn't like it much anymore, then you were experiencing habituation.
Desensitizing means learning something your afraid of can't actually hurt you. Kindergartners on their first day of school are often terrified. But two weeks after school starts they don't even think about it.
To learn Breath Control, just start asking your self when you feel stress if your breathing fast and shallow? If the answer is yes then breath in slowly and deeply hold for a 2 or 3 count and breath out slowly and fully and hold the exhale (ie don't start breathing in) for another 1 or 2 count.
Don't worry about messing it up, learning new skills takes time and effort.
After a while it will become a habit and you won't have to think about it, just like hitting 1A!
To habituate or desensitize you simply need exposure, a measured bit at a time so that the fear doesn't overwhelm you, but you need to gradually increase the amount or intensity of what causes you fear over time as you improve.
Say you were afraid of spiders, you could work on being in the same room as a small spider in a jar.
Week by week, or day by day, work on getting closer to the jar. Till you can actually hold the jar with the spider in it.
Then you could start over with a Tarantula in a jar or cage, and work your way over time closer and closer till you could actually touch the Tarantula's cage.
Then if you want to take it to the next level, you could start with feed the little spider. You would probably just drop it's food in to start, but if you worked at it you would eventually be able to hand feed it (for those who have spiders I know feeding them can be more complicated than that).
Then you could try that same progression with a Tarantula.
So for SC2 you could start by practiceing something with a friend, there is a Handicap setting on the menu bar were you select race and color that lowers HP of buildings and units that you can also use.
Simple technique for balancing skill in practice is winner has to handicap themselves by 10% per win.
Or loser can ban one unit for their enemy in the next game (ie no DT). Just realize these things benefit the Winner more than the loser, since they will have to learn another way to beat you. When you still haven't learned how to defend their "A" game.
Another, I think better choice, is the winner has to use same winning build in the next game.
After your comfortable playing practice games with friends, and real games with friends, you can start playing real games vs strangers.
You could start with 2v2 or 3v3, that way you have some social and in game support.
Another approach, tell yourself you have to play one ladder game a week the first week.
Second week you have to play two ladder games, and so on.
For those new to my Blog, check out the "Event Corner" at top right, just below all the world clocks. The Event corner has clock for time zone of whatever event is listed in the Event Corner, in this case EDT for MLG Orlando!
The world clocks at the very top are to make time zone conversions easier for all my followers.
I think the key was Stephano getting Gold up as 4th in response to Kiwi taking a very fast 3rd.
Combined with good positioning, enabled by a superior economy, what I mean by that is that Stephano maintained a larger food army so he was able to maintain better concaves and dual flanks to maximize the benefit of the larger army.
Kiwikaki forced to GG
Game 2
Stephano goes fast banling bust vs Kiwikaki's Forge Fast expand, but he curls around the backside instead of pounding straight at the wall of Kiwikaki.
For those not familiar with Fraps, it provides the following features, Benchmarking (displays FPS), Screen Capture, Realtime Video Capture (record games in HD).
There has been a breakthrough with HDD, providing up to 18TB HDD, more information here.
I got a weekend pass for MLG Orlando. First time for me, so I thought I would share my thoughts, I know for previous MLG's I was really on the fence about getting a pass. Kept looking for reviews from people that had it, so here are my quick thoughts. Post a question in comment section if you have one, you should be able to post as anonymous.
Overview: High Quality setting is watchable but doesn't seem like HD, Ultra is better. Ultra seems like it is 780 or close, worth the weekend pass fee IMHO. I can run two streams at high or 1 at ultra and other at high with stuttering on the High. [Edited, for my computer Ultra + anything else isn't stable with MLG's setup, it just crashed. I don't have a REAL powerful computer but I can handle two 720 streams from Twitch or similar no problem.]
Beta Streams: I am likening the streams from the floor (the Beta Streams 1&2 or Silver and Black), watching Boxer vs Drewbie right now.
I am a lot more interested in the floor play than many of the stage games. Huk is was playing July, I respect both of those players, but Huk's play is really Micro/Control focused which isn't my favorite play style to watch.
NOTE: Only two settings Medium or Ultra for the the Beta Streams! Medium is same as free stream.
Cons/Feedback: Some audio issues, but I was having that on the free stream also. Not a big deal to me because I frequently turn audio off on casts. But I watch about 10 hours a day of VOD, Stream, & replays.
Conclusion: So if your debating getting the weekend pass I would say it is worth the $10, specially if like me you want to see games of some of your favorite Players that won't be on the stage much, if at all.
Stream quality is significant improvement over free stream.
Shoutout & Thank You to GreenMiku (aka Jimmy) for telling me about this great VOD! I probably wouldn't have watched it otherwise.
This is example is from Idra vs Elfi VOD cast by Crota. I like Crota's casting, he is so enthusiastic about Starcraft, please follow his youtube so he will keep bringing us games like this one!
Unlike previous post about Protoss dropping Zerg, this Zerg (Idra) has very good Defensive Mechanics, I think of Idra as a Mechanics focused player.
Elfi uses a beautiful Strategy to clear those Overlords so he can make a successful drop. I provide my detailed thoughts below the embedded VOD.
Elfi uses Phoenix to clear both scouting Overlord(s) & the "Picket line" (my term) of Overlords that provided vision to spot incoming Drops.
They also snipe the Queens, which reduces Idra's immediate defense, but also hurts his economy and production. With no Queens for Larva Injections, there will not be many larva for morphing into units or drones.
Let's pause a moment and note that even if nothing else is done, these are three small advantages (Map Control/Vision, Loss of Supply, Production/Economy/Larva injects) that Elfi has gained. Not game winning, not even permanent. But real and useful none the less.
But like a good Chess or SC2 player, Elfi leverages these two small advantages into a bigger one.
He flys a Warp Prism into a corner of Idra's Main, in which the Phoenix have denied vision, and starts warping in Zealots directly into Idra's main. [There were some lings that the Phoenix missed in the middle that the Prism flew over, but if Idra saw it, he probably did it is Idra, I'm guessing he thought it was a Phoenix on Rally or scout path.)
Beautifully timed +1 Attack for the Zealots!
Elfi focused down the Spores, which I thought was a mistake the first time I watched.
Then I realized that he was planning on using the Phoenix and Zealot together in Idra's main, so he wanted the Spores gone so they would not hurt the Phoenix.
Phoenix do bonus damage to light, they actually do 18 DPS to the Hydra's vs the Hydra's 14 DPS, not to mention the Phoenix have 100 more HP/Shield total than the Hydra (120hp/60 shield vs 80 HP).
This was a solid, beautiful, Strategy. Lot more than trying for a simple hard or soft counter.
Elfi had a clear transition planned out, he already had Robo Support bay warped in (I spotted it on the Production tab) and was researching Thermal Lance for Colosus when Idra GG.
Right when Crota is saying Elfi doesn't have a Transition because he is on two bases, a Probe is moving to put Nexus down at the safe close 3rd, outside the Main's ledge, and there is a Robo just above that spot building a Colossus.
And at 12:36 when Crota puts camera on Elfi's main you can see the Robo Support bay is about 20% done with Thermal Lance. It is hard to see but there is also one Robo making something, certainly a Colosus IMO at top left of the camera view. [I really want this replay]
Also note the Resource Tab for Elfi, he has banked a ton of Gas so he can start pumping Colossus, which will rip apart the Hydras that were only unit Idra had been making!
Deepest layered Strategy I have seen so far in SC2.
Think Day9 will like this one to.
[edited to add below 10/13/2011 @ 17:08 CDT]
I have been thinking hard about what Zerg should have done differently.
A few things stand out:
Poor Defensive Creep Spread
No Nydus
No Burrow
Not Enough Queens
No Counter Attack
IMO the best Defensive Mechanic for Zerg is make a NYDUS!!! So you get surprised by Banshee, Voidray, Drop, the Nydus defensivly lets you save more drones! Lets you move units around faster to defend. Also enables many Counter Attack threats. You can even use it for vision and creep spread.
A Viking or Phoenix can kill or push away Overlord Picket line, but they can't do that to Nydus worm. Yes Viking could land and attack, but lings work pretty well vs ground mode Viking, and I am not saying it is permanent response, but a Reactive one. So the air unit is pushing your ovie away from coner of base that doens't have creep yet? Throw down the worm!
Burrow should be researched evey game for Zerg like Warpgate is for Protoss. You can always burrow drones to try to save them, you can burrow any attacking unit when it gets low HP, not just Roaches.
For base defense Burrow, also allows you to save units till you can mass enough to attack in useful fashion, let the buildings tank damage for a bit. You can always unborrow one or two units at a time for quick harass to delay focus fire on buildings if you have the APM to spare.
When I have seen Idra rage about Blink Stalkers, I really want to ask him why he doesn't use Burrow Micro to try and counter it? Yes, if they have detection it may not doing any good, but then again it might. They would have to spend more time/money/gas/apm on detection & if they are using Blink Micro they are probably near their APM limit already.
Zerg players do tend to have better APM & unit control because they need it to control Zerglins and Mutas effectively. So they might do okay with this even if enemy has dection, though I think Overseers Contaminating Robo or Raven producing Starports could help a lot with this.
Queens have the same DPS as Roaches, they also have the same ground attack range as old Roaches, but they have 30 more HP. They also have Transfuse and Spawn Creep Tumor, very powerful spells. Queens are neither Light or Armored so they don't take bonus damage from any unit except Archons or Snipe becasue they are bio. They are also the only Magic Unit in the game that doesn't cost gas!
The Phoenix would have needed ~20 shots to kill queen vs 5 to kill Hydras. The Zealots need 10 hits to kill a Queen vs 5 to kill Hydras. That doesn't even count Transfuse!
Queen + Hydra has a lot of synergy!
Counter attacking is always something to think about, when possible it is a more efficient defense. In Chess one of the more important lessons to learn when you spot an attack is, can I ignore it? Which means not wasting resources on defense. Because defense does not win the game. Creep makes all Zerg offensive ground units faster.
As Zerg if you make more Queens and less Hydras to defend vs Air Attacks, including drops, once you have denied enemy, or even before, you can work hard on a fast creep highway straight to the weak point of their base. Hydras on creep move as fast as Stimmed Marine/Marauder. Off creep they move same speed as unstimmed Marine/Maurader.
"Destiny joins Quantic’s current world-class StarCraft 2 roster, consisting of Agh, DarkCell, iNkA, SaSe, Shuffle, Theognis, and Zelniq. For his debut event as a member of Quantic, Destiny will be attending MLG Orlando and competing in the Open Bracket."
"The ASUS ROG Stars Invite is an eight-players invitational tournament which will be held in the Helsinki Exhibition & Convention Centre, during the DigiExpo. The event will be broadcast in Finnish and in English."
So far listed invites are WhiteRa, Ret, Elfi, & Dimaga.
Well, more accurately this is a fairly well executed multiangle attack (good Offensive Mechanics). Against a Zerg that wasn't defending properly (ie bad Defensive Mechanics not unit comp).
Attack at north of the Map with Warp Prism, note this is pre buff Prism, and ground attack at Zerg's South base, Zerg's 3rd, by land.
Note: The Protoss ground army was also in position to defend if Zerg counter attacked, which Zerg probably should have done.
Zerg should have had lot better map vision, if you look at good Zerg players, even good Platinum/Diamond level Zerg, they will have a shell of Overlords giving them vision of incoming drops.
In addition to that you need proper base layout, and more importantly some way of responding quickly!
This map is small enough you could use speedlings (if bases connected by CREEP!) or Muta for defense.
BUT, this zerg went Roaches, so he/she needed a Nydus for defense, so Roaches could respond to multiple angle attacks effectively.
Now once the drop happened, bringing Roaches all the way back to main did nothing but worsen Zerg's position. After dealing with the ground attack, you will have to look at Minimap. Don't believe that Doa put the camera on those Zealots until after they had already skirmished & maneuvered a bit, because he had the camera on the drop in Zerg's main.
So based on actual in game situation Zerg should have: Defensively, Zerg should have walled with spines at base of Main/Natural ramp, combined with Ovie vision, that would have contained Protoss inside Zerg's Main. I have seen a VOD were Stephano did something similar vs Kiwikaki on Xel Naga Caverns IIRC, think I have it on my blog actually (now I do).
Offensively had Roaches/ling cracking wall at Protoss Natural, and followed up with Lings flooding Protoss base.
Though Stephano did it with just lings and Spines.
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This game was cast in September I believe, not sure when it was played (cast from Replay AFAIK), looks like Stephano had not quite refined his build and strategy at the time this was played.
Day9 Trivia, this is the series were Day9 just talked and with his mouth full of water because Husky left him hanging.
This was from the GSPA event, they have replays and more on their webpage.
No replays yet. Embed VOD is the Epic Game 2 of Kiwikaki vs Stephano, IPL 3 VODs links below the embedded game.
Here is list of VODs from IPL 3 if you spot any link problems please post a comment and I will fix. Thanks to IPL and everyone for some truly great games.
RSS is enabled for the blog, I am used to using Firefox so I subsrcibe to things from the URL bar, but if that doesn't work for your browser, you can scroll to the bottom of the blog. Left side has RSS feeds, and the right side has email feed.
Hard core computer Geeks will probably think it is fluff, but for others, like me, that usually only learn enough to use computers well I think this is a very good article.
I am in the planning stages for setting up good gaming quality home WiFi LAN, so I am mining this article for hints and tricks for setting one up.
Commentated by EG.iNcontroL and Diggity
After seeing Kiwikaki's use of the Mothership vs Stephano in the IPL 3 Saturday, I just had to dig up one of his earlier games where he used recall.
[Edit: Seem like they are down today, was up yesterday 10/9/2011 so might just be a tech problem]
I think I would call it a blog: http://gabshowmatch.zxq.net/
That showcases Team GAB's, Minigun & Destiny's 2v2 team, Showmatchs.
Has links and other information.
Team GAB isn't the strongest 2v2 team, but I think they are the funniest to listen to, and if your new to Starcraft 2, their 2v2 games are an enjoyable way to get more familiar with Starcraft.
Ascendtv, Ascend and Thundertoss, are doing the casting.
I really like Thundertoss, he has the most insight into game play of anyone I have heard talk. I would like to see Thundertoss and Day9 coach one or two proplayers (Catz, Destiny, TriMaster, or Minigun would be my choices for the players) for a week or two, a special event that was streamed & VODed. I think that would produce some stunning results.
I think Minigun is on the edge of becoming a much stronger player. I think if he got over his distaste for PvP, not that I blame him I play Toss and I hate mirror matchup also, or just said okay I hate PvP but I want to be a top tier player.
And got serious about improving at PvP, I think he might acutally be the equal of Kiwikaki, perhaps even stronger.
But then Teamliquid / Liquidpedia is probably best place to start for Starcraft 2 information online.
If you need or want more detailed information, really deep detail, you may need to go elsewhere. But you can usually find the links to the deeper information from TL.
I have been telling Zerg players for some time that Hydra were under used, they always whine and say hydras are to slow, though they are same speed as Zealots (before charge upgrade) or Marines/Marauders (when not stimmed).
Sleep is the first player I have actually seen that really seems to have a real well thought out method of using them.
He uses the Muta's mobility to draw enemy out of position, while the ling/Hydra keep striving for position.
Nice transition into Broodlord Infestor, with Ultra to follow that up, wish i could see all the upgrades he chose.
He was upgrading the Air Attacks, Mutas had +2 attack when broodlords came out he got +3 attack.
I'm guessing he is upgrading Melee attack and Air Attack, because that really boosts the Broodlords, plus the melee upgrades allow for stronger tech switch/transition to Ultras. The Ultras work better vs smaller armies, because they have splash if they get surround they will do a lot of DPS with splash, plus Broodlords force Stalkers and HT. The Ultras do good vs smaller numbers of Stalkers with ling or Infestor support.
Really cool Game 2, wish I would have seen Game 1, or more than the last half of Game 2.
I think adding some Queens would have helped for Transfuse on the Mutas, and creep spread, the Mutas were doing a good job of pinning Protoss in his bases and giving map control. Creep spread would have really boosted the power of the Hydras.
I would have also liked to see a Nydus, more for withdrawing Hydras or dropping an offensive worm somewhere the Mutas flew over.
Muta/ling plus Nydus has a lot of synergy. Been waiting to see that, saw it for the first time a week or two ago, some Korean (I think) Zerg used it against Grubby. First time they used against Grubby he was forced to GG. Second time he was more prepared for it, but it still seemed very viable.
