Hooray!

Changing my TvT to include a Factory as the second production structure and pushing in Tanks with that free siege mode is really super strong.

Before the Replay:

My opening wasn't the smoothest it could be.  I kept myself from being supply blocked but I wasn't getting things built quite on time.  It wasn't so off that I was too worried though.

I didn't get my aggression on quickly enough, however, so when I did finally push out with what I had, he held it off pretty well.  I did good damage, but also lost quite a few units.  He was already on 2-base and I managed to expand behind.

As I expanded to my third he dropped me and pretty much destroyed my mining SCVs.  I hadn't noticed (good job...) that my Main had mined out.  I sent those to the 3rd, defended the drop and turned to push.  I met his army 1/2 way and destroyed them.  It wasn't close, but he did pretty good damage.  I figured he had more incoming minerals than I did (though I was catching up with my MULES and SCV production..) so I decided to push and stop his mining.  He had a 3rd and 4th, I hit both and contained his army at his 2nd and he GG'd out.

After the Replay:

Despite my opening not feeling very smooth, it was ahead of schedule compared to his.  So that worked out =)

After that though he looks a lot better than me.  He's keeping his money down, he's producing from his structures, he's expanding, getting upgrades.  My money's high, I'm not using all my buildings, I'm just barely getting my 2nd up as his 3rd goes up, his income is shooting past me.  At the 14 minute mark, it seems amazing that I'll win this game.

Oh maybe this is it.  He queued up 1 SCV to build a bunch of Supply Depots.  But he was producing units faster than that SCV could complete the Supply Depots.  So eventually he just kept hitting the supply cap ceiling and just waiting it out, giving me time to catch up.

He still hits 200/200 well before me, as he's doing his drop.  At 20 minutes when our armies move out to meet I'm at 154 supply to his 200 supply.  I have 1 Raven, 58 Marines, 4 Marauders, 4 Tanks, 4 Hellbats, 1 Viking, 2 Thors and 4 Medivacs.  He has 7 Medivacs, 1 Thor, 30 Hellbats, 1 Tank, 18 Marauders and 18 Marines.  So wow...those 2 supply cost Hellbats were really hurting him.  30 Hellbats to my 58 Marines is almost even.

His upgrades were "better".  +3 attack where I had +2 attack, +1 defense.  Maybe not better...maybe that counts as even?  This Thors were 2/2 though, my Tanks and Thors were 1/0 (attack/defense).

At the end of the fight I have 110 supply to his 104.  Jesus.  Hellbats are not a 200/200 composition for TvT I guess?  At least not against my composition.  He has 2 Hellbats left, 4 Marines, 5 Medivacs and 1 almost dead Thor.  I've still got 20 Marines, both Thors, all 4 Tanks, etc, etc....  GG!

+ 26 Points, Silver League, Division Rank 43

Wrong button, wrong button!

Oh man!  I tried to click "watch replay solo" on the ZvZ game I had just lost and accidentally pressed "play again" and queued for another game.  Damn!

Still, I managed to pull it out.

Before the Replay:

Adjusting to build a Factory immediately after my first Barracks in TvT is a great addition.  Hooray for free Siege mode!  So OP!

He went early expand and I crushed it and camped his front for a while.  He eventually pushed me out with Banshees but I was up to 3 or 4 bases by that time and just rolled over his army.  GG!

After the replay:

Man I needed to be spending better when I was on the Offensive.  I could have been more agressive to, but I don't mind taking an objective and just holding it.  I could have even pulled back and it wouldn't have necessarily been a mistake.  But my macro slipped seriously while I was pushing on him.  Sloppy.

Also he did have a second when I took his second.  I thought he might slip off and grab one, but I didn't send Marines to scout.  Just scanned a few.  Also sloppy, I should have sent Marines around the map.  I had plenty of Minerals to.

+ 26 Points, Silver League Divison Rank 56, Remaining Bonus Pool: 407

Time to work towards Silver!

Before the Replay:

I started feeling like I was sucking.  He was poking my front pretty good with a Drone and then Zerglings.  My plan was to go with 1 Rax then Factory to get my free Siege Mode Siege Tanks up and then transition into Thor / Marine / Tank depending on what he brought.

It didn't quite work that way.  He rushed past my tanks to attack my workers.  He did mutas in the back and Zergling / Swarm Host in the front.  All kinds of things while he expanded a ton.

Fortunately, I held.  He destroyed all my Siege Tanks while I was distracted with the Mutas and for a second I thought I was going to lose.  Then I realized he was out of stuff and just pushed into his base and killed him.  1:1 Marine / Medivac ratio = Good!

After the Replay:

He did a decent job of getting upgrades, though I think I edged him out.  We both could have done better.

He had 4 bases to my 2 when he was building his forces.  He had good income and was keeping his money super low.  He didn't do a great job of larva injects...but he was keeping his money low so it probably wasn't a problem.

He could have had more gas....had 2/3 in two extractors at his 3rd and 0/3 in both built extractors in his 4th.

I got supply blocked a lot around the mid game.  I got so distracted by all the attacking and rebuilding and trying to get everything "going" I wasn't paying attention to that.

Once he started to move his big "DOOM" army into place, he wasn't macroing that well any more.  He wasn't getting a lot of upgrades (1 at a time for 2 evo chambers) and his money was getting way out of control.  Over 2k minerals.  He did take a 5th base while he had me pin'd in, which was a nice move.

He swarmed my Tanks with Zerglings.  I was distracted with the Mutalisks trying to defend my SCVs and he just stormed the walls and surrounded them.

Meanwhile he was only building a few Zerglings to repopulate his army and had almost 5k in the bank.  Meanwhile I was spending all my cash into rebuilding as much as I could as fast as I could and expand...which is how I won, he really gave the win to me by not macroing hard enough after he attacked with what he thought would give him the win.

By the end my Macro was slipping.  My third was finally running pretty well and I hadn't built up.  I think I started to make the same mistake he did.  I'll have to be more careful about that.

+ 44 Points, Bronze League Rank 53, Remaining Bonus Pool 271

Ladder's locked..

But I can still practice with the new units.

Before the Replay:

Booya!  I've modified my TvT opening to be Barracks, Factory, then more Barracks into early pressure and a second expand.

It worked fantastically.  That free siege mode is all the justification I need to go early tanks.  He had a widow mine that did some good damage and ultimately defended against my first push, but it more than paid for itself in his units lost compared to mine and it let me get my second up super safe.

I got more macro going, started a third, threw down some structures for upgrades and pushed with basically the same comp and ended the game.


After the Replay:

I moved out at the 7:15 mark with 50 supply compared to his 28 supply.  6 of that lead was in workers. That makes me feel good.

Watching the replay I was just getting everything a little faster than him.  When he finally finished defending the push at 11 minutes I had 67 supply to his 25.

+ 48 Points, Bronze League Division Rank 48, Remaining Bonus Pool 612

First non Placement Match in HotS...

And he was quite polite!  Hooray for the Bronze League.

Before the Replay:

So I decided I wanted to go Mech because hey, free Siege Mode right?  Plus, Firebats.  Or whatever they're called...Hellbats?

So I wasn't very agressive, I pushed once but he'd already gotten a good Roach army up.  I pulled back and expanded and saved my units.  I did a decent job of spending my money, but the build could have certainly been smoother.  Still, a win's a win.  My Tanks crushed his Roaches and my Vikings roamed the map picking off his Overlords.  He build Hydras for Defense and a huge Muta army, but I built a lot of Marines (so much fore mech) and slaughtered them.

Finally I pushed and he GG'd out with a "wp".  He was Platinum.

After the Replay:

I'm not totally sure what all he was doing.  He did a double extractor trick, but didn't pop them until after he had an Overlord up....

He triple expanded right off the bat.  I'll have to watch for that in the future, scout it out.

I did supply block him a lot.  That feels good =)

Until he built 12 Overlords at once.  Wow.  At least that gave me time to expand without any pressure on me.

I destroyed all of those and then some giving me a chance to expand to my third after he attacked with and lost all his Roaches.

So yeah, mostly the replay feels the same as the game felt before.  Interestingly when I got my 3rd up at 18 minutes it felt really slow, but he was still at his original 3 bases because he was constantly trying to defend and rebuild his Overlords.

+ 40 Points, Bronze League Division Rank 68, Remaining Bonus Pool 634

Edit: Looks like the ladder locks tomorrow so I'll be staying Bronze for this season.  Perhaps I can get back to Silver next season.

Blown Away

Not even close TvT.  He was bronze league.

Before the Replay:

I tried to do a quick but macro oriented marine build but he got more marines and a tank out faster than me.

That's all there is too it.  He hit me hard at the same time I was pushing out, but did it with more.  I defended but he immediately returned with more and smoked me.  GG.

After the Replay:

He macro'd better.  The only difference was he threw down a factory early and macro'd better.  Just better mechanics.

Also his APM was crazy high.  He macro'd pretty good, had a better build and had high APM, am I in serious trouble on the new post HotS ladder?  Maybe so.

1 Placement match Won, 1 Placement match Lost, 3 to go

Well, at least I wasn't Protoss...

Before Replay:

I don't really know how to play TvP.  I hate Mech, I mean I really hate it.  I like my Siege Tanks but I can't stand to go mass Siege Tanks and I don't like to go with a Cloaked Banshee rush and I cannot do enough damage with early Hellions to justify it.

So I don't know what to do with TvP because if I move out quickly, I'll just get run over.  If I wait and let him do what he wants, I'll get run over.  If I try to harass, he's faster than I am and more able to split his units.

So instead I lose.

After the Replay:

Nothing really surprising here.  I never stood a chance, he had me beat from minute one.

Maybe I should try turtling up and going Thor?

Absolutely nothing of value in the replay other than reiteration of the fact that I had no idea what I was doing and no chance from start to finish.

- 7 Points, Silver League Division Rank 14, Remaining Bonus Pool 111

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=273214

Proxied!

TvP.  I quickly scanned his base to check for cheese and saw no buildings   No pylons, nothing but his Nexus, Assimilators and Probes.

So I assumed he was building near me.  I sent a marine to scout it out a bit, not wanting to over react, he did and didn't find anything.  I continued with my build to get some banshees up and a decent ground army.

Soon I spotted a pylon.  Okay, so maybe he just did a single pylon proxy?  I went to investigate and my Marine found a large group of Stalkers.

Game was soon over and his Stalkers charged my ramp and could do nothing about it.

Lesson learned.  I'm going to stick with a modified version of my TvT opening for TvP.  Get a lot of units up, focus on core upgrades, be prepared.

- 12 Points, Silver League Division Rank 16, Remaining Bonus Pool 20

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=272300

Lots of BCs!

I did not think I was going to win this one.

Random v Random, turned out we were both Terran.  I got more Marines out faster but he upgraded faster.  He quickly proved his army was stronger than mine, but my macro was better.

I realized I was quickly approaching a supply max so I just kept filling out my Marine / Medivac / Siege Tank army while also putting up a bunch of Starports and double refinery expansions.  Eventually I took a chance at an attack and lost.  I was expecting that though and immediately began producing nothing but Battlecruisers and Marines.

At that point it didn't take long.  I'd go in, throw away my whole army and take a good chunk of his.  Then I'd immediately do it again.  Then again.  Eventually it wore him out.  He was also using BCs in his army and siege tanks and Thors.  Made him slow and my BCs + Marines eventually ran him out of units.

+ 26 Points, Silver League Division Rank 14, Remaining Bonus Pool 20

http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=272298

10 Pooled. Sad face.

I fucked up my wall-off and left just enough space for a Zergling to get by.  So as soon as I was able to get a single marine out, he had 6 run into my base.  Shortly there after I was overrun.

Nothing more to say.  I couldn't tell if it was blocking the ramp or not when I put it down, clearly it wasn't and therefor I lost.

- 6 Points, Silver League Division Rank 20, Remaining Bonus Pool 51

http://sc2rep.com/replays/%28T%29tbear_vs_%28Z%29Bmatsui/20979

Another new site for Replays.  We'll see if this one sticks.  URLs are harder =)

I don't like it when they don't talk..

At the start of every game I throw out a good luck.  Just seems polite.  Usually I'll get a gl hf or something in response.  But sometimes I get nothing, no response at all.

It bothers me less when I roll the guy.

TvP.  We scouted each other in the first 6-7 minutes.  I scanned and saw he'd expanded without much in the way of units, so I pushed the front a bit while I threw down my own expansion.  I didn't pull out as soon as I should have, but I think I still came out a little ahead.

Then I did a drop, two full Medivacs on his main's Probe line.  His observer was sitting right where my Medivacs loaded and took off, but he must have not been watching his mini map because, watching the replay, he had no idea.

That was pretty much the end.  He was sitting on 3k minerals, but not spending them, and I finished him off.

+ 23 Points, Silver League Division Rank 12, Remaining Bonus Pool 0

http://drop.sc/258009

"gg, gtg, wp"

TvT, we exchanged Marine armies a few times when I got too agressive, he came out ahead each time. Eventually he pushed me back to my base.  He finally tried to push in with his Siege Tanks, I defended and he gg'd out saying he had to go.

On watching the replay, I was in a lot better shape than I realized.  He slowed down on making SCVs a few times where I stayed reasonably steady.  He didn't really get upgrades where I had 1/1 and was working on 2/1.  I also had STIM and Combat Shields where, again, he had none.

And the places where he came out ahead (aka where I sacrificed my marines for no perceptible gain) he didn't really have much left over either.

+ 28 Points, Silver League Division Rank 20, Remaining Bonus Pool 15

http://drop.sc/257551

Hooray, a win! =)

TvT, I kept up some moderately agressive acts early in the game to put pressure on him and make him feel pinned back.  I got a little greedy and threw away the advantage that I had gained, but it wasn't a monumental loss.

Ultimately I won because I had better map control and used it well.  He kept trying to move around and drop but I was able to see it coming and get my Marines into position quick enough and he eventually just quit.

I got supply blocked...not a lot, but a good number of times.  Certainly more than I wanted to.  So I need to keep focusing on that.

+ 46 Points, Silver League Division Rank 26, Remaining Bonus Pool 13

http://drop.sc/256240

New Goals

After some time to reflect on last night's losses I'm ready to try again tonight.  I'm just no longer trying to win =)

For tonight and for a while until I get comfortable again it's just back to basics.  Don't get supply blocked, keep my money low, keep producing from my structures.  If I can do that, it's considered a win even if I get rolled.

...

And that first win doesn't count.

He had a probe in my base early and bobbed around a bit.  Embarrassingly I let him kill an SCV who was building but he stuck around enough to get stuck in my base.  Eventually he ran off to the fog at the edge of my base as my first Marines were coming out and started summoning a Pylon.  I killed his Probe and he quit.

Apparently I ruined his plan at 4 minutes and 29 second by destroying the Pylon in my base?

+ 38 Points, Silver League Division Rank 28, Remaining Bonus Pool 28

http://drop.sc/254220

First match of the new season

Let's see how I do.  Hoping to get reset in the ladder a little given my lack of recent practice.

...

I got rolled SERIOUSLY hard.  Zerg who just went to town on me.  I wasn't able to touch him, ever.  Couldn't put any pressure on him, couldn't get to his base much less in it.  I was outclassed and totally outplayed in every sense of the word.

Very frustrating game on top of that.  The whole game it felt like I couldn't do anything.  I had no way to win..everytime I tried to deploy anything it got shut down.  Anytime I tried to expand or move my troops out they got slaughtered.

Frustrating.

Placed in Silver League, so at least that's something I guess.  I need to play more.

- 0 points, Silver League Division Rank 26, Remaining Bonus Pool 40

http://drop.sc/253870

I now suck at TvT

I'm not sure what's changed in the time since I've played.  I'm not getting enough agression out early enough, that's for sure.  But it also feels like people are more prepared for that, so I'm hitting a hard wall with my agression.

What I quickly run into is a scenario where I feel like I'm constantly failing to catch up until finally I run into the Terran turtle army, loose everything against it and it's GG.

Honestly it feels like I'm just not fast enough to execute the strategy.  So maybe I just need to keep playing...  This is one of the challenges of not having more friends who play SC2 any more, makes it hard to get more games in every week.

- 9 Points, Gold League Division Rank 73, Remaining Bonus Pool 286

http://drop.sc/226314

Back to the placement matches!

TvP win tonight.

Admittedly, the guy just started playing again (according to his profile).  The last few days and then months ago.

Also I got a bit lucky.  We were cross map positions so once I confirmed he was just building a Colossus / Gateway deathball in his base, I expanded and teched.  I moved out at the same time he did but had control of the Xel'Naga so when I turned around I hit his base from behind, taking out his lagging Colossi first and then rolling the rest of his Gateway units before he quit, no GG.

A bit lucky, but as I say "a win's a win" so I'll take it!  2 placement matches remaining.

drop.sc/217778

Also, I have bronchitis.  I didn't know before hand if playing SC2 would cause me to cough with my lungs being as shallow as they are right now.  Verdict is in, it does.

4 placement matches to go, let's see if I can do better.

This one I won.  TvZ on Daybreak, first time on this map as well I believe.  He was super passive which gave me all day long to get comfortable.  I pushed out a few times and had medium success.  Lost more troops early than I should have because I got over agressive.

He never did a good job of out mining me though, or really teching too much.  Just did roach / hydra / infestor which was effective enough but eventually he fell to my endless supply of Marines.

Anyway a win is a win, helps to get the rust off.  3 placement matches to go!

http://drop.sc/197521

Computer crashed...again

This time was pretty straight forwardly my fault.  I spilled water onto the desktop.  Anyway, once I got the PC working again Season 7 was ending so I just waited for Season 8 to begin.

Aka, today.

Because I missed all of Season 7, I have to go through my 5 Placement Matches.  Let's get them out of the way!

Anyway, I just got rolled.  Protoss who went 2 base on Ohana LE (first time for me, new this Season or last maybe?) and just massed Colossus.  For some reason I *wasn't* prepared for this.  Stupid =)

4 Placement Matches to go!

http://drop.sc/196621

Right back on the bike...

Okay so I lost.  Time to try again.

Well...that went better.  He GG'd in 10 minutes.  TvT, my first time on Korhal..apparently it's a cross position 2 player map?  Anyway...he rushed Reapers on me but the first one wasn't crossing until I had Marines at both watchtowers, so I killed it.

One eventually managed to get in my backfield where my SCVs were, but I already had Marines ready to move in to deal with it and another group ready to attack his base at the same time.  So I moved into the ramp and just kept sending reinforcements.  Eventually I broke his front door and by the time my upgrades were started and second base was just getting going, the game was over.

I did get supply blocked once, so I screwed that up.  My money climbed too, when it came time to doing army stuff I kept building but stopped building new buildings.

 + 28 Points, Platinum League Division Rank 45, Remaining Bonus Pool 246

http://drop.sc/144754