100 1v1 Random Victories

Hooray for another Achievement Milestone.  Does 100 wins count as a Milestone?  Whatever, I'm counting it.

The game was pretty straight forward, he put on a lot of pressure with Roaches and Zerglings.  I defended solidly enough and kept macroing until I got my Mutas up.  They got up just a little before his and I was able to keep a higher count.  He expanded to his third at the same time I crushed his army and produced a lot of Roaches, so I just went to his base and killed him.

Today's Lesson Learned - Is actually the same as yesterdays, I just hadn't figured it out yet yesterday.  Macro's slipping a lot.  I'm doing "okay" at constantly producing units out of the appropriate structures but my money's still slipping high.  Forgetting SCVs/Probes and even to an extent Drones.  I get caught up with my 60-80 target by the end of the game, but I should be getting there sooner.

Also I'm forgetting about upgrades.  I'm remembering to build the structures and start the first round but I forget to keep checking the buildings to make sure they're producing the next upgrade, and the next and the next.  I'm not being punished because apparently in the Gold league people don't get upgrades, but this is something I need to work on if I want to keep getting an advantage over my opponents.

+ 24 Points, Gold League Division Rank 30, Remaining Bonus Pool 191

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/5316

ZvT Day

I played an almost 50 minute ZvT today.  I played...not great.  Well enough to win, but not great.  I went for Mutas and he blind countered with mass mass mass Vikings.  And for some reason I thought "okay...I'll just get more Mutas".

I tried to break his front with Baneling / Speedling but his tanks killed everything.  After 3 waves of it I finally made a dent but I threw away probably 120 supply doing it.  Anyway I eventually won that game and then got this one..which was apparently a chance for redemption.

I did a 14 hatch gas opening.  He pushed on me with his first 4 or 5 Marines and did a decent amount of damage before I cleaned it up.  He pushed again with Hellions which I stopped but at the cost of building a lot of Lings.  He then pushed again with a pretty strong Tank Marauder force.  All the agression off one base (he didn't have time to build all that and expand) told me he probably didn't have anything protecting his home so while I tried to slow him with my Speedlings, I sent my 5 Mutalisks into his mineral line, destroyed all his SCVs mining, his Command Center and the next wave of troops he was producing.  GG

I really liked his agression though.  I need to be better at that..constantly putting pressure on the opponent.  Maybe not as Zerg, though I can harass a lot with Zerg, but as a general rule I should be attacking / harassing more.  Lesson for the day - be more agressive.

+ 28 Points, Silver League Division Rank 20, Remaining Bonus Pool 265

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/1862

6-pool..err...7-pool?

I was 6-pooled here this evening.  It was on Scrap Station and it was..unexpected.  I guess I don't think of that as the best map for a 6-pool?  Or rather...let me restate.

Because of the distances, early on Zerglings are great so I can totally see a 6-pool, but not the quitting after it failed.  So he comes in with his extra drone to scout / harass / keep me busy and then rushes in with the early Zerglings.  I did a decent job (apparently good enough) of microing with my Marines and SCVs to put them down and he quits out.

It got me thinking a bit about the games I won and lost today.  The ZvP I won, the guy did some kind of interesting one-base 4 gateway Zealot rush..but then he just sat the Zealots on his ramp.  The TvT I won, the guy just didn't produce enough stuff fast enough and didn't tech up his Barracks units as much as I did.

The games I lost I think I was that guy.  The guy who just quit after his strategy didn't work, or had a strategy that just didn't make sense or just didn't..produce as well as he could have.  I found, even in the TvT I won, on replay that I wasn't making out of my Barracks as often as I could be / should be.  I'm considering grouping them up with my Command Centers just so that I'm forced to look at them more often to see that they are / are not producing.  I wonder if the time lost tabbing through the sub groups would be worth keeping more constant production out of the buildings?

Lesson for today: I need to firm up my "mechanic" game-play.  Practice producing constantly, do better at always spending all my money all the time.  Just need to smooth some things out..I think.  I feel like those games I lost were so extra frustrating not just because there were so many of them today, but because it felt like I was doing everything right.  I'm thinking, now, that maybe I just need to do everything right *better*.

+ 32 Points, Silver League Division Rank 40, Remaining Bonus Pool 338

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/174507-1v1-terran-zerg-scrap-station

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Ce69zYNGQ

Frustration!

Okay, well I'm done for the day.  All I do is lose.

ZvT.  I don't know how I lost.  Suddenly I just had no army and he was kicking my ass.  I honestly don't know what I did wrong.  I was macroing well.  I'd 200/200'd a good army and was getting decent upgrades and he comes rolling out with his tight little ball and I can't do jack shit about it.

I'm just terrible.  I can't make any right decisions today, so I'm done.  4 losses?  5?  I don't know.  Too many.  How long has Season 2 been going?  I've only scrapped together something like 9 wins and 15 losses?  I'm a fucking awful player apparently.  I have no idea how to play correctly, all I do is lose.  I swear to God it feels like the more I play and the more I try the worse I do.

- 7 Points, Silver League Division Rank 45, Remaining Bonus Pool 385

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/174346-1v1-terran-zerg-scrap-station

Zealot Rush

This guy just ROLLED me.  ZvP and I went for an early expand on Scrap Station and he just Zealot rushed me hard.  I scouted it and defended but it cost me some drones and he was *right* back in with more Zealots and *right* back in with even MORE zealots and stalkers and again with Immortals mixed in.  I never got my economy back off the ground, never got my units fully built..just never could properly recover, I kept spending all my larva on units instead of drones.

GRRR.  I don't know what the lesson is here.

- 6 Points, Silver League Division Rank 44, Remaining Bonus Pool 384

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/174298-1v1-protoss-zerg-scrap-station

Gluten for Punishment

I don't even know why I queued up again today.

Of course I f-ing lost again.  I rolled Protoss versus Terran and decided to just built up and he built.  I tech'd and expanded and he..never did anything.  Never pushed out, never expanded..never did anything but sit in his base.

I should have flashed back to the days where that spelled disaster for me as a Zerg, but I didn't.

Instead I setup some Zealots in his natural and held waiting to contain..started building immortals to go with my Blink Stalkers and Charge Zealots.

Which is when he dropped a huge army into the back of my base full of Marines and Marauders and just ripped me apart.

Amazingly I haven't been demoted to Bronze yet.  But I'm sure it's only a matter of time.  Every game today is worse than the game before.

+ 0 Points, Silver League Division Rank 99, Remaining Bonus Pool 171

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/163219-1v1-terran-protoss-scrap-station

"Okay, gg"

This game went better.  I early expanded as Zerg again, but on Scrap Station which is always nice.  He did a good job of scouting me out and pushing hard with 4 Warpgate but I made a strong effort to keep injecting larva and making drones and spitting out replacements.

I went muta / ling which is a favorite of mine, I'll admit.  Kept harassing, kept him from expanding (which he didn't really try to do until it was too late, anyway) and just kept coming back.  He did manage to stop me from taking a 3rd a few times and just kept doing a good job of reproducing his stalker heavy army.

But he just didn't have the income to keep up with my endless zerg units.

+ 26 Points, Silver League Division Rank 7

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/148895-1v1-protoss-zerg-scrap-station

10th 1v1 Protoss Victory!!

Getting 10 1v1 Protoss wins shouldn't feel like the overwhelming victory that it does.

The map was scrap station and I was worried that I'd just get overwhelmed by his safe economy and mutalisks so I tried to pressure early with Zealots and go Void Rays.

The Zealots never did anything useful.  I scouted with a probe but his drone wouldn't leave it alone so I couldn't get a proxy pylon down.  The Zealots ended up being base defense from his Zerglings which were annoying but not.. devastating.  I should have built Sentries, but I wanted to use all my gas on Void Rays.  I thought about it and dismissed it more than once.

I rallied my Stargate to the island and just kept sending in the Void Rays.  Once I destroyed a lot of Drones the first time around he started going mass queen while he tech'd up to defend himself.  I kept charging and damaging the Queens and pulling back.  Once he started getting ahead of me in the Queen to Void Ray damage ratio I sent in the Zealots to shut down his Natural expand and then merged my forces.

The game felt good..in so far as it felt like I really earned my victory.

Lesson for the day - Harassment works.  Second game today where I made an effort to keep putting pressure on my opponent.  Make him feel defensive and trapped and force him to make the mistakes.

+ 22 Points, Silver League Division Rank 6

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/147084-1v1-protoss-zerg-scrap-station

Even when I know it's coming...

I rolled Zerg vs Terran on Scrap Station.  I got utterly rolled by this Terran.  He went with a double reactor fast banshee play.  I saw it coming...and just failed.  I didn't have any detection so I threw down a spore colony or two before they got to my base.  They still did damage.

Once he started hitting me, the hits never stopped.  He one-based the whole thing, my army of zerglings outside his ramp did no good.

My plan was to go muta / zergling.  I did an early expand and was trying to tech quickly to the mutas but...I don't know.  I don't know where I went wrong.  His banshees just ripped me apart and I couldn't get enough of anything going to stop them.

Once my mutas finally got up (the spire had only just started when the banshees showed up) he rolled in with marines and marauders.

I brought the lings back and cleaned up, but it was a pain.  I couldn't morph overseers because my gas had been spent on my first batch of mutas and I couldn't spawn queens because he'd destroyed my spawning pool.

I had my early expand keeping me in the money so I could keep fighting him off.  But he had a huge upper hand.  I needed banelings to better hold off the marines that were coming in waves, but I couldn't get them without sacrificing my queens or my mutas when I also needed at this point.

One thing I failed to do was spend my money.  My queens were dead so I wasn't getting any larva injections so my money was stock piling.  I finally realized and threw down an extra hatch, but it was too little too late.  I needed 3 extra hatches, and more room to place them in.

I guess maybe that's the solution to try.  Don't worry about banelings, next time I see this kind of continued banshee harassment do my best to hold while keeping drones and protecting the key structures as best I can.  When my money gets high, I need to be aware right away so I can start throwing down extra hatches to keep my production up so that when I wipe his army (as happened a few times) I'm not left in a worse position than him.

-11 Points, Silver League Division Rank 6

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/143740-1v1-terran-zerg-scrap-station

Always have a plan, never have details

Before I took my break from the game, I played about 10 or 12 games against a friend of mine.  He wanted to try out some bunker strategies and I wanted to try defending myself against bunker strategies...so it worked well.

Going into the games I was afraid I'd bias my build / actions towards something that would be good vs his early bunker rush, so I would make a decision, "I'm going for X".  Just some really super basic strategy, like Dark Templar, or mass Blink Stalker or early Zergling pressure into Roach / Hydra.

I rolled my friend.  Hard.  Eventually he gave up the bunkers altogether and just played and I, keeping my "come up with a plan first" strategy, continued to beat him game after game after game.

I find that having a plan, even a simple outline of one like that, makes a huge difference.  It takes some of the pressure off, I don't have to worry about coming up with a good strategy based on what he's doing.  I just focus on my game, scout, defend and attack when appropriate.  A big battle happens?  No need to think during the fight, I already know what I should be doing when I throw in my macro, and when the fight's over I can go right back to full time macro.  No "okay..what do I need to build now" thinking time.

So going into these fights, that's the most important thing for me.  I see the opponents race and the map and once I spawn I see my race.  I set my guys to mining and then take a second to think "alright, what's my plan".

Opening into the game today I saw I was playing on Scrap Station vs a Terran.  Personally, I hate Scrap Station.  As any race, really.  Something about the way it's laid out..I never feel totally comfortable.  When the map finished loading I was it would be a TvT and I needed a plan.

My Terran play is very simple.  Build Marines, build Marauders, don't stop building Marines or Marauders, get upgrades.  I then take this and do slight variants.  Some Siege Tanks, or Vikings or Medivacs.  Sometimes a game calls for Thors or even Banshees or Ghosts.  But usually Marines and Marauders and I'm set.

So given the layout of Scrap Station my thought was "God I don't want to be running my Marines around here" so I decided to go for an even Marine / Marauder / Medivac build.  I finalize the "plan" in my head and tell my opponent "gl!"  He responds "prepare to win".  Great...

I wasn't entirely sure if he was just having a bad day, or a bad week and just expected to lose.  Or I know some players are "intimidated" by the Random during the load screen and assume I must be good. Either way I went about building my SCVs and Barracks.

Typically I open heavy early Marauder with Concussive, but vs Terran I opt for a Marine heavier build with Stim first.

He opted for Turtling.  This isn't the most uncommon tactic for Terrans from my experience, and when I'm also Terran I'm more than happy to see it.  You want to build Bunkers and Siege Tanks and protect your little one-base?  Please...please do.  I'm happy to have free reign to build.

Finally I pushed out with a little force of Marines.  I killed his Expansion that was starting and then broke myself on his Banshee and Siege Tanks...but it was okay.  I cost him 400 minerals in his Natural's CC and I saw what Tech he had.  I also hadn't stopped building stuff so at this point I already had two Medivacs with Marines and Marauders heading towards the back of his base.

He had a Sensor Tower up at this point to protect that angle...but must not have been paying attention to it because I'd destroyed all of his SCVs by the time he reacted, allowing me to retreat with no losses.

I paused for a few minutes here (in terms of agression) to get my expand fully up and running and do a little base management.  I need to get better at doing that stuff while doing other things....I'm not sure how other than keep trying.  He took the opportunity to sneak a few cloaked Banshees into my main mineral line which cost me a few SCVs before I was able to get my Vikings back there with Scan to destroy them.

Ultimately I did win.  I pushed and destroyed his expand again while double expanding and when he pulled his army out to defend his Natural I loaded into my Medivacs and dropped into his main.  Siege Tanks are great for defense, but when you roll them out against a more mobile army...it never really ends well.

Anyway, one win for me.  Though I feel bad for him.  I looked at his stats, he'd lost the previous 4 or so games he's played today.  He's Gold Leagued but with only 10 games or so under his belt, so I'm guessing he placed there (unlike my "last in the Bronze league" initial placement).

+ 26 points, Silver League Division Rank 5

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/143741-1v1-terran-scrap-station