Sunday Mornings!

No easier than Saturdays.

TvP, got my ass handed to me.  He just rolled me good.

I'm not sure what I could have or should have done better.  I had left over Money so I know I wasn't macroing as well as I could have...I just....I couldn't do more.  Physically...I couldn't get more accomplished than I was it felt like.

I did some early harass with Marine / Marauder and widdled down his early Gateway force.  I followed that up with simultaneous drops on his supply lines...not realizing he had a third up and running.  Finally he just came in and killed me.  I downed the Collosus but there were so many Stalkers and Archons that my units got rolled.

I had over 2k/1k in the bank so clearly I macro'd piss poor.  I just felt like I was so busy getting my third up, producing, dropping, scouting, upgrading that I was maxed.  I guess that's a problem.

Lesson Learned - I can't do enough?  I don't know.  I'm having such a problem with any and every Protoss matchup.  PvT, PvZ and PvP - from both sides!

- 11 Points, Silver League Division Rank 13, Remaining Bonus Pool 197

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/2366

Defend Defend Defend....Push

I sometimes feel bad for Zergs I beat in TvZs because I know just how it feels to build what seems like a strong army and watch it splash, helplessly, against the turtled Terran again and again and again and then to just lose when he pushes back with a moderately sized but dangerously strong force.

My Zerg opponent went for a quick Roach Warren so I anticipated a fast rush.  It never game, but I had my Marauders up with Concussive Shell anyway.  I kept building out of 3 Rax, got a Factory up with Siege Mode and put down a second OC and finally he attacked twice.  I defended both pretty handily (not sure if I lost anything in the attacks except a few supply depots) and then retaliated to win.

He kinda divided up his tech too much.  Banelings and Roaches by 8 minutes feels like more money spent on tech than on units.  Not strictly speaking true, but it just has that feel to me.

I played a few ZvZs last night, lost both pretty badly.  The first one I lost to a quick Muta rush and then I Rage queued into the ladder and immediately hit the second one.  I need to rethink how I approach that matchup.  The first if I'd thought more about what I was scouting I would have realized Mutas were coming and could have been prepared a *little* faster, which was all I needed.  For the second, he went 6-pool into ling / baneling which screams of a muta follow-up and I neither scouted nor predicted it.

Actually to be fair to myself I did expect the Mutas, just not in the number he had at the speed he had.  I need to rewatch that replay.

+ 30 Points, Silver League Division Rank 21, Remaining Bonus Pool 282

Hopefully SC2 gets their replay submission fixed soon...

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replay-videos/1529

Finally!

TvT on Typhon Peaks.  I went with my quick Marine build, but stopped at 3 Barracks when he spotted it.  I scouted his ramp with my Marines and saw he'd bunkered himself in tight so I parked the Marines at his natural and started to Tech and Expand.

Once my Tech started to get established, I pulled back the Marines but 1 and waited built up.  He sent in some kind of drop or Banshee that got picked off by my missile turrets and when I had a pretty good army established and was working on base #3, I pushed out to see what would happen if I poked him.

I ended up rolling him instead.

+ 34 Points, Silver League Division Rank 44, Remaining Bonus Pool 370

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/174423-1v1-terran-backwater-gulch

50!

Took a bit of a break over the last week to play Portal 2.  I love those games....anywho..

ZvZ today.  I went for an early expand into Speedlings and Roaches.  It went...well.  My opponent scouted me out early and tried to cheese me with a quick spine crawler on my creep, but I scouted it with my drone transfer.  He cancelled and went for an extractor, then pulled back and tried to do the spine crawler again but I had my first round of 'lings up by then and stopped it.

I then sent them into his base where he'd built a hatch at his expansion, but hadn't populated it...so I took it down.  My 'lings got pulled into his base where I spotted a bunch of spine crawlers, and I pulled back out and started massing Roaches.

He had a surprising number of roaches for a quick counter but I held it off easily and pushed.  He never re-expanded and just went for Mutas, but my queens held it while my hydras got up and I just muscled my way into his base for the win.

Interestingly he's division ranked 10th for his Gold division.  I wonder if he normally wins his ZvZs with cheese like that, or if it's just a weak matchup for him...No, no I'm reading through his history.  He 6-pools most games.  That explains it.

Oh, I also got my 50th solo win as Random, so that was fun.  Trying to decide if I'm going to change from my Zergling portrait to the newly unlocked Overseer portrait.

+ 40 points, Silver League Division Rank 57, Remaining Bonus Pool 366

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/171379-1v1-zerg-backwater-gulch

Max Army

I seem to have a problem where I'm not comfortable with waiting until I have a maxed out army, but I'm not harassing either.

So I'm just sitting in my base, letting the other guy build better than I am.

I played a Terran vs Protoss.  My strategy was to go heavy on the Marauders and then incorporate Vikings with my Medivacs later on.  Unfortunately when I tried to attack with the Marauders he already had quite a few Immortals mixed into his Zealot / Stalker army (larger than my Marauder army, btw) and a Colossus with the extended range.  He smashed me and then retaliated.

Am I really that awful?  I guess so.

Lesson learned - I don't know?  I don't know.  I haven't learned anything from this game yet other than that he was better than me.  Do I need to expand and keep teching?  Just wait for him to hit me?  Should I be doing drops?  Opening with a banshee harass?  I don't know yet.

His army isn't that mobile, right?  Immortals are slow, the Stalkers provide cover for the Collosus which needs an army to be effective.  So maybe lots of drops, keep him on the Defensive.  Attack where he's not.

- 11 Points, Silver League Division, Rank 8

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/146897-1v1-terran-protoss-backwater-gulch

I don't know if I ever win as Protoss?

I just can't figure out how to play Protoss?

My plan was to open Zealot heavy while I got up Blink and a Stalker force and then roll out with heavy Blink Stalkers.  I opened with a double Gateway for a lot of early Zealots and at the 8 minute mark I had a couple up, transformed into Warpgates (x4) and my Expansion started.

For a while towards the end he had 4 Warpgates he was producing out of and I had 10.  But he was ahead of me in upgrades (I was devoting all my cash to producing units so I stopped at 1/2 and he was quickly (16-17 minute mark?) at 3/3 so his units were just ripping mine apart.  I changed my tactic slightly to bring in some DTs, he had a single observer that I was able to take out which bought me some time.

Eventually he put down a second set of 4 Warpgates and despite his smaller economy was able to then just crush me.

I guess..next time...I don't know?  I made a lot of mistakes.  I should have scouted earlier so I could have put more pressure on with the fast Zealot build to make it more worth while.  I should have harassed with the DTs harder, try to push him back to his base.  Managed my upgrades better, I spent a lot of time with a lot of minerals trying to figure out what to do with them.

Lesson for the day - PvP sucks.  Okay, no.  Early Zealot build needs scouting and Mirror Matches require upgrades to not just be important, but a top priority.

- 11 Points, Silver League Division Rank 8

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/146743-1v1-protoss-backwater-gulch

Must Macro Harder

I played as a Zerg vs Protoss.  My plan was to do a massive Roach / Hydra army.  I harassed early with Zerglings while I built up some Roaches, and pushed on his base a little once I broke his expand.  I kept my macro up and expanded at every opportunity.

Unfortunately I failed to build enough to keep up with the expanding.  I had more minerals than I could use.  I kept throwing down more queens and more hatches...  Eventually I hit my supply cap and just worked on tech until I was able to shut him down.

I didn't want to do a full on "engaged" fight against his big Warpgate + Collosus army, so instead I focused on keeping him contained and starving him out.  I set my Overlords to generate creep and sent them around the map to the various spots and just kept my eye out.

Today's lesson - Keep focusing on macro during battles

+ 26 Points, Silver League Division Rank 8

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/145751-1v1-protoss-zerg-backwater-gulch

How many stalkers can he build?

This was my first game in Typhon Peaks.  I didn't learn anything.

Yet again I failed to come up with a plan.  I early expanded, popped out a few queens and connected my base and injected larva and got my speed upgrade and made lings.

Then at the 8 minute mark he rolled out with 8 or 9 Stalkers plus a few Zealots and a Sentry and *rolled* over me.  It wasn't even close.

Lesson learned - screw 4 warpgaters.  I don't know...  I failed to have a plan so I had no direction.  If I had one would it have been different?  Maybe.

-14 Points, Silver League Division Rank 7

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/145035-1v1-protoss-zerg-typhon-peaks