The StarCraft II thread

[TheButtonmen]

Name: TheButtonmen
Code: 659

[TheButtonmen]

What what game type do you guys play?

I'm mainly 2v2 at the moment.

[TheButtonmen]

Wait! This game has guest passes? How do I sign up?

Everyone game comes with 2 guest passes for 7 hours of game time or 14 days (whichever comes first).

Here's one of mine 2GT97J-F88N-7TRZTH-K64E-JY9GPH.

Redeem at www.starcraft2.com/guest.

If anyone else is interested I still have another.

[TheButtonmen]

ReaperCharlie doesn't want us to see that he's in all bronze leagues.

[TheButtonmen]

Walls are complicated business.

[TheButtonmen]

2v2 is truly the best of formats!

[TheButtonmen]

TBM we started playing better after you left I swearz.




NUKE RUSH

WTF YOU NUKE RUSH WHEN IM NOT THERE?!?!?

I FEEL LEFT OUT AND SPURNED!

[TheButtonmen]

Hey I've given both my guest keys away and a bddy of mine wants to try the game, anyone have a spare?

[TheButtonmen]

You need to beat people ranked higher then you >50% of the time, so it's going to start matching you vs people from gold / silver and once you start winning there it will promote you; no need to grind at all, it's based much more on win streaks.

[TheButtonmen]

I'm watching MLG too while "working" on a project; Jinro vs Sock on Desert Oasis at the moment, great TvP game with action happening all over the map all the time and continual nukes raining down off of three ghost academy's.

[TheButtonmen]

Spoiler:

You need to pressure, you don't however need to commit; Foxer lost on Xel'Naga caverns and Metal games because he overcommited and got swarmed by 20+ lings, if he had pulled back then his opponent would have 20 useless lings and no drones. The key to beating zerg is to make them spend their larva on combat units rather then drones, you don't need to all in their natural to do so. Just moving up forcing them to make a production cycle of lings / roach then falling back is enough to stop them from power droning.

Also slight nitpick, SPlateau isn't a zerg favoured map (If the bases are connected by the back door then T has the advantage where as if the bases are cross postion the long rush distance favours the zerg).

[TheButtonmen]

Best ro64 match is probably leenock vs clide.

who called it? Shanba called it!

GuineaPig vs. Junwi was my favourite R64 for the lolwtf is happening factor even though it wasn't as good a match.

[TheButtonmen]

I'll be like the cool kids and post replays form tonight (3 ZvT, 1 ZvP and 1 ZvZ).

[TheButtonmen]

This was the most fun game I've played in a while

[TheButtonmen]

I suck as well. TBM refuses to play with me but he doesn't outright say it, and just awkwarldy avoids me when I'm online.

Lies!

You just always msg me when I'm either afk studying or when I'm already in a four player group massing queens, ravens, infestors and sentries.

[TheButtonmen]

Scumchat fighting!

[TheButtonmen]

Kiwikaki vs Morrow Game 3 from the round of eight in SCReddit Invitational needs to be watched by all of you!

[TheButtonmen]

Soooooo many marines.

[TheButtonmen]

Baneling Bombs gone wrong.

[TheButtonmen]

Skip practise league, it teachs bad habits!

Also watch this game, seriously one of the most epic games I've ever seen (Morrow Z vs Kiwikaki P on Metal).

[TheButtonmen]

Anyone got tips for a good Zerg midgame? Because I have been sucking balls there lately.

What match up and what do you mean by midgame?

[TheButtonmen]

The challenge missions are worth a go though.

[TheButtonmen]

I'm on.

You haven't posted your name / number in thread yet.

[TheButtonmen]

Stupid question: What's a good TvT counter to cloaked Banshees when I'm building mech-heavy?

Banshees are light, if your opponent if getting lots of them then thors happily blow entire clumps to shreds as it's unlikely your opponent is familar with anti-thor micro. A simple scan or raven followed by a volley of 2-3 thors is enough to deter / kill any marauding clumps of banshees.

If it's harassment that your worried about them simply build a handful of turrets and have some marines to back them up.

[TheButtonmen]

Unclumping them and then keeping them spread out to avoid thor splash when moving / attacking.

The term normally used to describe it is "Magic Box".

[TheButtonmen]

Is there a non-100APM version? >_>

1. Select all the units using a drag box.

2. Use the move command and click somewhere outside of the box you just drew.

3. Keep using the move command (and not clicking in the box) until your over your target.

4. Hit hold postion.

5. Profit.

[TheButtonmen]

Haha. So you destroyed him, and then he told you that you were terrible?

Lawlz

That's generally how the internet works no?

[TheButtonmen]

And Idra complains about almost anything that can kill him in game. At least in that video they had a balanced discussion on the Collossus.

Idras got a bad rep but he doesn't really call other races units overpowered much instead he generally calls zerg underpowered and laments it's inability to scout.

[TheButtonmen]

I feel dirty, I've been tooling around as terran

[TheButtonmen]

Has anyone else had a problem where the loading screen says teams even, then afterward(idk if this happens if you lose)when you win it says you were favored?


http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/1392 ... ga-caverns

Your MMR changes before pts are rewarded, so what happened there was going into it you were ranked evenly but afterwards you were the favoured party.

[TheButtonmen]

That's a real thing, it's called team melee.

One person controls the buildings / workers and the other controls the units, just share control.

[TheButtonmen]

SC vs San was awesome, the second set was a bit weak though.

[TheButtonmen]

http://mystarcraft2clan.com/blog/perman ... e-vlc-link

It auto extracts the VLC link and works with the HQ stream if you have a seasons pass.

[TheButtonmen]

I used VLC to watch July vs AnyPro last night.

[TheButtonmen]

GSL Finals right now!

[TheButtonmen]

Yeeeaah Team TBM, Gama and Very Easy computer, all y'all can't touch it.

Especially you Fate.

Dammit I liked that nexus.

[TheButtonmen]

So I've been messing around with other races since it can't demote me with the ladder about to end, and have discovered that I am terrrrrible at zerg.
Anyone play zerg and have some advice for spending minerals faster? I've been massing speedlings with my extra larva but it would probably be better to get a few extra queens and take risky expansions for the extra gas, maybe even get another hatch or two in my main/natural. Any suggestions?

First off in response to your question, speedlings are larva heavy resource light if your going heavy speedling you're going to need extra hatch + queens (One of the benifits though is you get faster upgrades as another way of spending your money).

You want to learn swarm eh?

Great Resources include;

Day[9]- Learn the basics, a zerg who can't macro is a dead zerg.
Mr. Bitters - Once your plat or above he has coaching from all the big name zerg pros about how to deal with indvidual match-ups and openings.

Simple off the top advice:

Injecting:

1. Put all queens on 1 hotkey.
2. Select queens.
3. Press Spawn Larvae hotkey.
4. Press Backspace once to center on a hatch.
5. Hold Right Side Shift. (With left hand thumb, do not release at all)
6. Click Left Mouse Button + Backspace (Hit backspace with left hand index\middle finger) <- Repeat this series of actions rapidly. Hitting LMB and Backspace over and over in succession.
7. All hatches are injected.

[TheButtonmen]

Sometimes you kill over 40,000 resources worth of units, neural parasite six carriers and attack with Ultra / Roach / Hydra / Corrupter / Brood and realize you're losing that attack and the game is no where near to over.



Fifteen minutes and 30,000 more resources worth of units killed the enemy protoss transitioned into the fabeled fifty three minutes Bitbybit.Prime timing attack.

[TheButtonmen]

Just remember kids whenever somebody tells you you need to win a lot to get promoted they are lying.

[TheButtonmen]

how can you be best ranked when you have NO wins?

Ladder reset just happened and I lost my first game afterwards.

[TheButtonmen]

Not exactly SC2 related but it's stuff like this that makes me love the TL.net community.

[TheButtonmen]

Spoiler: For JD

(Send starting ovie to their ramp)
10 Ovie
13 Pool
12 Gas
(Putting you at 11 food)
Drone until 15
@100% on Spawning Pool make a queen, roach warren and 1 pair of zerglings.
(Use those lings to chase out scouts.)
@100 Gas start ling speed
17 Ovie
@100% on roach warren finishes start 3 roachs
23 Ovie
Everything after this SPPPEEEEDDDLLIIIINGGGSS
(With occasional ovies)

Use the roaches + overlord sight to kill the blocking zealot and just bum rush lings in, keep roaches sniping their wall off / blocking unit and run lings in you need to get them all up the ramp before a sentry can FF.

[TheButtonmen]

we took down his colossus with zerglings and zealots

What is this, I don't even....

Like did he just leave them in the middle of a flat open field on hold position?

[TheButtonmen]

[TheButtonmen]

Bumping for team leaaaague GSL. The last game of Prime vs. MVP was awesome.

on this note, the last game of the final (which just finished minutes ago) is easily one of the best games i've ever seen

GSTL Finals > GSL Finals.

This is now proven fact.

GSTL is now on twice a week throughout the entire GSL instead of four straight days after every GSL.

More GSTL, more often, which is awesome.

[TheButtonmen]

Voidrays move at 2.25 and have range 6.
Vikings move at 2.75 and have range 9.

If it's just Vikings vs Voidrays then Vikings can kite voidrays to death without every taking a hit.

A) Have all your vikings on a hotkey.
B) A-Click by the voidrays.
C) M-Click a behind your vikings.
D) Hit S.
E) M-Click behind your vikings.
E) Hit S.

Everytime your vikings stop moving they will automatically fire at the closest voidray, since you have longer range and higher speed you can just rinse and repeat until the void rays stop chasing or are all dead. If they stop chasing then you can just run them down.

[TheButtonmen]

Perhaps, but when the void rays are en masse and fucking up your base, there's really nothing you can do.

I will now share with you the wisdom of our ancestors.

“One of the best counters is to just go fucking kill him.” - Day[9]

[TheButtonmen]

Baneling bust... so I just make multiple layers of walls? And have Marines to fight off the zerglings that come afterwards?

A) If you can make it so add-ons aren't part of your wall in it helps as they are fragile.
B) If you have supply depots as part of the wall in then put a single bunker behind it.
C) Keep your marines somewhat spread out so the first baneling through the hole doesn't instagib them all.

Best against BBust (The barrack placement, ignore the supply depot / reaper shananigans):


Good against BBust (Note bunker anchoring the supply depots):


Helpful trick:

Banelings deal 20 damage to marauders, Marauders have 125 HP. So they either send lings forward to kill the marauder in the choke while your marines / marauders behind the wall in all shoot at them or waste 7 banes on it (for comparison it takes 6 banes to kill a supply depot).

[TheButtonmen]

Well, those who are REALLY INTO SC2 are going to get taken for $180. A game and 2 expansions sold as 3 full price games is just not a good thing for RTS in general.

Q: How much will Heart of the Swarm cost?

A:

We typically don't provide details about pricing until the game is closer to release. We do view Heart of the Swarm as an expansion set, so for the regions that have a standard box business model such as North America and Europe, we will price accordingly.

They aren't full priced.

[3] - Yes, but lurkers aren't confirmed afaik for HotS multiplayer, which is where it matters most to add/subtract units.

Lurkers are confirmed not coming back, they never mentioned the defiler though so my wild pipe dream lives on.

[TheButtonmen]

From the screenshots I've seen it looks awfully WC3-ish where you're playing a hero unit (Kerrigan) all the time.

Also banelings everywhere for some reason.

So many banelings.

All those screenshots were from the one level they were demonstrating, the game is still in very early beta so they only had 2 somewhat working levels to show.

Though to be fair if the final game does indeed have banelings everywhere I would be okay with it.

[TheButtonmen]

Only one zerg?

Booooooooring.

Also MLG weekend!

[TheButtonmen]

Oooh JDodge is pulling an inControl.

[TheButtonmen]

I can vaguely determine what kind of builds people are going for or what they'll be focusing on but I have no clue how to counter each one yet.

In your level the counter is just build more stuff, getting the basics down so that your constantly making workers, expanding on time and constantly pumping out units will get you far further then any about of knowledge about "counters" or build orders will ever do.

[TheButtonmen]

I use 2 hotkeys: "S" for SCVS and "A" to attack and to make marines. Everything else I click.

You're ready for diamond!

[TheButtonmen]

Longest Four Gate I've ever been involved in.

[TheButtonmen]

As I get back into SC2 and grind away at the rust from sitting out season 2 I'm going to be putting a fair bit of time into working on this style (Here is it used in a Bo3 between Destiny(Formerly of Root) and ST-Bomber). It's ZvT without the standard holy trinity of units (Bane/Muta/Brood), where you instead swap between mass sling, ultra/infestor, ultrasling, infestor/sling and just build up huge stock piles of infestor energy and choke your opponent out.

[TheButtonmen]

Gonna be the Zerg flavour of the month now that Destiny surprised Bomber with it.

The lack of banes will probably make it unviable for lower level zergs, stopping bio without them is a pain.

[TheButtonmen]

To everyone complaining about the NASL finals production value.

It's the NASL, why are you suprised?

Following their normal schedule Friday afternoon everything will fail, Friday evening they will get it working, Saturday afternoon everything will work moderatly, Staturday evening everything will be good, Sunday afternoon something will break, Sunday evening will be decent.

[TheButtonmen]

Today went smoothly on the production side and awesomly on the games side.

[TheButtonmen]

First off IPL season 2 is soooo goood.

Re: All in If you removed the air units then all in is ez pz no matter what research you have, Pforts make it even more lulz easy. If you removed the nydus worms then it's hard as long as you didn't get the mind control towers, if you got those then all the broodlords do is give you a steady stream of reinforcments and the broodlings they spawn just clog up your ramps and mess with the enemy AI.

If Kerrigan is the problem then A) Have specters just spam their nuke on her and instakill her, B) Wall with Pforts, have marines in bunkers kill her or C) send in some sacrifical units to burn her spells and then snipe her with mass ghosts or just bum rush with marines.

[TheButtonmen]

I cheesed for my 100th win since Shattered Temple PvZ on close position is impossible to win for a protoss.

You uh got that backwards, close postitions anything is zergs worst nightmear.

[TheButtonmen]

Clearly wrong, there's no F key.

[TheButtonmen]

Anyone want to mindlessly grind Insane AI with me? I'm out of easy achievements to grind unless I wanna Random league, which, contrary to my prior claims, is a little low for me so far.

That, or figure out Left 2 Die. DRK and I couldn't manage Hard, though we (or at least I) didn't see the other ledge... ^^;

Left 2 Die is easy.

If you're on anything other then max difficulty all you do is mass Marine / Medic get every upgrade and just overrun everything with mass marines. It's dirt simple and easy.

If you're on Night 2 Die then you wall off with Planetary Fortess behind your chokes (2 of them at the main entrances and 1 at each of the smaller ones) put 1 bunker and 3 missle turrets on the ledges above each enterance (Research concussive shell and put 1 marauder and 2-4 marines in each bunker), leave 2 scvs by each PF and 1 by each bunker with auto repair on. Also build 1 bunker and 2 missile turrets behind your mineral line, research the bulding armor upgrade first at the Eng. Bay then max infantry weapons and once you have tanks max vehicle weapons). One player researchs the building upgrades, the other saves for seige tanks.

Completely Ezpz.

[TheButtonmen]

Or you could just make marines.

[TheButtonmen]

They should just remake Fighting Spirit.

They pretty much did.

[TheButtonmen]

MLG weekend!

The best casting archon on stream (Day[j]Wheat, suck it Tastosis) and Mr.Bitters holding up the other, I'm stoked.

[TheButtonmen]

Adding 160 more chairs for SC2 tomorrow. 5000 spectators - give or take.

You must construct additional

pylons

chairs.



When they were introducing the casters for the various games at the start of MLG all the other casters were being all serious, Day[9] / DjWheat wanted none of that.

[TheButtonmen]

He forgot rule #1 of playing vs a Slayers terran, there is always a dropship right behind your base.

Leave stuff at home.

[TheButtonmen]

Weird haircut.

[TheButtonmen]

This is a great explanation of the basics for ZvP in flowchart form.

GSL Finals have been insane so far, great games show casing completely unique ZvZ styles.

[TheButtonmen]

Heading to a local bar in about an hour... they're hosting a MLG special for 5 hours tonight. I'm pumped :#D

Barcraft ftw!

Jinro continues to be very meh.

Tyler is doing better then I expected.

Ret continues to be good but get zero air time or recognition.

Slayers continues to show why they churn out amazing terrans.

Crowd is awesome.

[TheButtonmen]

This wasn't even the biggest fight.

[TheButtonmen]

[TheButtonmen]

Dammit MMA, Your CCs aren't your enemies!

Wheat is unamused.

[TheButtonmen]

So SC2 is getting somewhat popular at MLG.

This is happening again though.

[TheButtonmen]

The VoDs for MLG are out!

My favourite game of MLG Anaheim starts at 1:24:25 here (MMA vs Boxer G3).

[TheButtonmen]

euuuuaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhh that vod quality

You want good VoD you get an MLG membership and help ESPORTS.

[TheButtonmen]

....I bet you found the Cold War interesting and are currently a huge fan of the Korean DMZ.

[TheButtonmen]

What site?

[TheButtonmen]

This picture is too ESPORTS.

[TheButtonmen]

EG likes to announce announcements but this time they are pulling off all the stops and making it into a giant puzzle.

Right now the best I can figure out is EG moving to Korea, forming a teamhouse and Huk joining them / the house?

But that's just entirely guess work.

[TheButtonmen]

I don't think that this is it. This is part 1. I think they're acquiring more Koreans soon.

A lot of the BW contracts are about to run out.

Just sayin'

[TheButtonmen]

No DjWheat

I don't expect much out of Huk this MLG he's literally gone around the world 3 times in the last month, he's spent more hours travelling to and from tournies then he's been able to sit down and practise.

[TheButtonmen]

"One Plott stole my heart, the other stole my ladder points" is my favourite sign from this MLG so far.

Edit:

[TheButtonmen]

There is at least one thing he's #1 at!

Spoiler:

Looking sad.

[TheButtonmen]

As Riot has decided that I can't play LoL anymore due to using a mac I have returned to my true love.

I've got two months of rust to shake off, should be interesting.



Starting off at Rank 75 Masters with a 42% winrate, I expect it will get worse before it gets better.

[TheButtonmen]

WHY LATEGAME TVZ
WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME...

Ghosts: Snipe the Broods / Infestors, EMP clumps of Infestors.
Drops: Brood/Infestor is very very immobile so abuse it and drop marines everywhere.
Upgrades: You need 3/3 Bio.
Scouting: Watch for the tech swap, if they suddenly stop renforcing with Broods or Infestors then start scanning to see if they are doing an Ultralisk swap.
Harass: Run around with hellions and menace expansions, all it takes it 1 or 2 good volleys and you've crippled an expansion. Run around with a small batch of marines and kill creep tumors, even if they die it's fine.
OC: Scan is more important then Mules most likely, by this point you shouldn't be starved for minerals (if you are then why did you stop making ghosts?) and heavy muling will just make your bases go dry sooner and zergs going to be doing their best to contain you.

[TheButtonmen]

WHY LATEGAME TVZ
WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME...

Ghosts: Snipe the Broods / Infestors, EMP clumps of Infestors.
Drops: Brood/Infestor is very very immobile so abuse it and drop marines everywhere.
Upgrades: You need 3/3 Bio.
Scouting: Watch for the tech swap, if they suddenly stop renforcing with Broods or Infestors then start scanning to see if they are doing an Ultralisk swap.
Harass: Run around with hellions and menace expansions, all it takes it 1 or 2 good volleys and you've crippled an expansion. Run around with a small batch of marines and kill creep tumors, even if they die it's fine.
OC: Scan is more important then Mules most likely, by this point you shouldn't be starved for minerals (if you are then why did you stop making ghosts?) and heavy muling will just make your bases go dry sooner and zergs going to be doing their best to contain you.

oh thanks
is lategame mech possible?
my bw sentimentality/my computer not being able to really handle bio micro.

Ghosts are mandatory however your core army can be mech yes, in fact it should be as without tanks there is nothing that can stop the zerg from just running you over with 80 banes, BFH are always decent at clearing slings off your tanks/thors and you need at least 1-2 thors to force the zergs to magic box their mutas to prevent a giant flock from roaming around one shotting everything. However marines are too versatile / cheap to stop making and without drop harass the zerg can just sit back, macro up and stockpile resources. You need to constantly be bleeding them or they will reach the point where they can do the brood -> ultra transition from 200 and the game is basically over.

If you are going end game mech though you need to include some ravens for PDD to allow your tanks to remain seiged long enough for your ghosts / vikings to kill the broodlords.

Edit: One other important thing with endgame mech is it's critical to have your tanks / ghosts kill any infestor that is NPing as you can't afford to suddenly lose half your thors.

[TheButtonmen]

NO VESSELS MAKES ME SAD.

SNIPE IS THE NEW IRRADIATE BUT WITH MORE RANGE AND ITS DAMAGE ALL FRONT LOADED (JUST NO ERASER TRICK BECAUSE THAT WAS HELLA DUMB), EMP IS THE NEW EMP BUT WITH MORE RANGE, PDD IS THE NEW DEFENSIVE MATRIX BUT IT PROTECTS AN AOE NOT ONE UNIT.

Edit: WELL HUNTER SEEKER MIGHT BE THE NEW IRRADIATE, NOT SURE YET.

[TheButtonmen]

Trololol all your drones are dead.

Thanks.

[TheButtonmen]

Every time I saw an irradiated ultralisk attacking bio I'm amused.

Also I just found Saviour vs Bisu 2007 MSL finals commentated by Day9 and Tyler, never seen english version of it before and I was a big Savior fan back in the day. So I'm going on a BW kick tonight and being all old school watching it while I work.

[TheButtonmen]

Them giving a brief overview during pre-game ceremony.
Game 1
Game 2
Game 3

Come have a revolution explained to you by two players with a deep understanding of the game.

[TheButtonmen]

Thank TL.

[TheButtonmen]

I can sum up how useless lukers would be in ZvT with one simple image.


125 HP.
20 Dmg.
6 Range.

Marauders would utterly shred lurkers.

[TheButtonmen]

If you don't mind trading your scan for lurkers, I'll plant one in your mineral line every game. I don't think it will be the lurker or a siege unit though, another caster is more likely.

Lurkers are gas, scans are minerals and if you want to burn scans you show them some bane bombs and force them to scan their way to you. Lurkers couldn't hold up pushs anymore as Marauders can just overrun them instantly.

[TheButtonmen]

Zerg is honestly fine unit-wise if the proposed Ultralisk change goes through (70->55 second build time), Zerg T2 units are all amazing (other then corrupter but they are more T3 units as they are pretty useless until you have a Greater Spire as their whole purpose is to guard Broodlords)

but

they are all specialist units, you don't want to just mass up any of them and they all need to be used wisely or else they are terrible.*

Zerg T2 is all about defense, they are meant to give you map control by making your opponents scared to move out and to crush timing attacks, which is why there is no dedicated Zerg T2 siege unit as that wouldn't really fit the race design. For the offensive abilities Zerg gets Roach speed, Baneling speed and Overlord speed/drop at T2 which means Roachs and Banes can now be effective off of creep which allows you to be much more aggressively positioned around the map.

Zerg is all about positioning and implied threats, your method of aggression and map control isn't through power units it's that your opponent doesn't know where your army is so any time they try to move out they need to worry about mutas in their main, speedlings run bys, infestors spamming down a fungal or two and just backing away and so on. You use your map control to spread ovies, spread creep and control the watch towers and just expand / drone up while keeping your opponents contained (they are not contained in the sense that they have a tank line in front of their base, they are contained because you see everything outside of their base, your units are faster then theirs and they don't know where the bulk of your army is). The kind of changes you're proposing would be more geared to allowing zergs to go toe to toe with other races armies in stand up fights which would make Zerg incredibly OP and would require Zerg mobility to be nerfed a fair bit.

As for Toss the new change on the test realm where you can no longer warp units in on ramps fixes 90% of what's wrong with PvP, the last bit of silliness might be solved by the increase in blink research time.

Honestly the only change I really want to see on top of the changes on the PTR is reversing the cost change to Ghosts (From 150M/150G to 200M/100G) and making EMP only remove 75 shields/energy rather then 100 as Ghosts on mass are a touch too strong at the moment.

*Yes hydras are pretty awful outside of a certain niche but are so very very good at that niche, they absolutely murder protoss units as long as the toss has no ranged AoE (aka Collosus or Storms).

WTB Firebats

You really don't; hellions don't take up Barracks time, cost no gas, are more then twice as fast; can be built 2 at a time and have a better range.

[TheButtonmen]

sc2bw is so balanced.

Clearly you weren't playing it back when seige tanks dealt 140 dmg.

[TheButtonmen]

All-Star matchs > GSL Finals

[TheButtonmen]

These finals show matchs are hilarious!

I'm shocked and amazed,

GSL Code S finals are actually putting on a great show.

[TheButtonmen]

DRG vs Thorzain game 2 from DreamHack Valencia Invitational was oddly Brood Waresque.

Thorzain is quite patient.

[TheButtonmen]

Not really sure where the drama is.

A) Stephano was unsigned.
B) Stephano wanted to switch teams.
C) Millenniums team structure isn't very good and they aren't retaining any of their talent.
D) Millennium doesn't support its players or send them anywhere non-local / Complexity has a looong and impressive history in e-sports of backing its players.
E) Stephano already knows / practices with Col members (the former Root crew).
F) Col has Korean ties and access to not just practise partners but also a teamhouse which are vital if Stephano wants to become top tier.

[TheButtonmen]

Edit : Well, we now have the confirmation that marines are good against mass lings. I never thought Stephano would try this ladder strategy on aLive he lost to during the#2 qualifier.

Marines are pretty good yes and people aren't going to be using their real builds yet as the pool play is essentially meaningless so most people aren't going to reveal anything major until the elimination bracket starts up.

[TheButtonmen]

Last night after all the games had ended, the crowds had gone home and the players had left for the night, one player remained behind practising.


The next morning before any of the games started up again, one player was there practising.

[TheButtonmen]

Late night practice let Boxer take down Stephano and Sase but can it let him take down Idra?

(Signs point to no)

Edit: Oh dear lord I saw the shot queued up as the tank sieged up, one tank shot killed 9 banes and ended a game (It's now 3-1).

[TheButtonmen]

Boooooxeerrr!

So close!

Edit: That game seven wow, so tense. Gg WP to both!

[TheButtonmen]

Stephano doing more then Idra?

I mean he's had a nice entrance to the scene but lets not go to far, Idra has a long term proven record. If Step can stick around and keep placing well at major tournaments then sure he'll be on Idras level but to surpass Idras record you need to be one of the best for an extended period of time.

As of now Fruitdealer has had a longer and more successful run then Steph and we all saw how that turned out.

Re: HotS the Viper makes me so incredibly happy, the Swarmlord is meh (need to see some solid numbers), the Oracle will only be used deep end game but will be very good vs nonterrans then, the Replicant will be involved in some timing attack where you use them to suddenly tech switch or something, the tempest is carrier 2.0 (aka who cares), Battle Hellion makes me want to kick a dog, Shredder looks good and Warhound might actually make mech viable in TvP.

Also if the current burrow charge makes it live then Ultralisks will become so incrediably terrifying as even 3-4 of them will let you break open siege lines and scatter units letting zerglings run in.

[TheButtonmen]

Also Agar Terran might be on it's way to becoming even more OP.

[TheButtonmen]

Need them mules Agar.

[TheButtonmen]

My sporadic rewatching of Savior games continues and I found one for Agar (No it's not from MSL in honor of your blog but hey you're still an Iris fanboy).

sAviOr vs Iris @ OSL Semi-Finals, Game 5 of the OSL 2006-3 semi-finals; English (casted by Klazart) and the orginal Korean ('cause I know Agar's an old fogey).

Utterly insane game by both players.

[TheButtonmen]

God that series was amazing. Iris was one of the few

Terrans

that could hang with Ma Bonjwa at his prime. Watch G1-G4 if you haven't yet. (And thanks for the Korean link lol)

Underlined for relevancy*, he was so god-damn good.

Fucking Savior.

*For those who didn't follow BW the dominant terrans always,

always

crushed zergs, it was part of their claim to fame and part of the sorta kinda T>Z>P>T trinity, then Savior came along and made everyone look like complete and utter chumps on some of the more imbalanced maps used at the time and did it with complete and utter fucking style, he wasn't a cudgel, he didn't win by having better mechanics, he didn't win through raw multi-tasking (looking at you Bisu), he won by understanding the game better then everyone else. Then Savior decided to throw everything away and ruin it all. fsdfhsj

[TheButtonmen]

Go, bask in the glory of Savior ZvT!

[TheButtonmen]

Marineking.Prime just game second in WCG Korea.

All is right in the world.

Also I just learned that Mr.Bitters is going to be casting MLG Providence!

[TheButtonmen]

Can't tell if serious or hilarious joke.....

[TheButtonmen]

Guys, can anyone give me some hints on how to deal with ultralisks in TvZ? In this matchup I usually do a very vanilla marine/tank/medivac build on 2 base - push - 3 base - try to contain, and this has been working ok if my macro is equal to my opponent's. However if they go ultra, specially in early/mid game, I usually lose, even if the macro levels seem the same.

Should I increase the tank/marine ratio? Any scouting tips for ultras? I suck at anything that is TOO micro intensive. Thanks for the input!

Ultras are actually pretty awful in ZvT about the only thing that they are good for is sending in 2-3 before your lings run in to absorb the tank fire; if you're having trouble with that then the solution is to manually tell the tanks to hit clumps of banelings or infestors. If you're issue is mass ultras then it's not the ultras that are the issue; it's macro. The solution to mass ultras is simply expand more / earlier and use drops to force the zerg to continually re-make drones / hatchs / queens.

But as for the ultras themselves; the first counter to anything that zerg makes is marines; now micro is required as you need to split well but between splitting, medivac healing and kitting marines can tank ultralisks for absurd amounts of time; the second is ghosts however as with all ghost builds in TvZ you need to work your way up to them.

Step 1: Marine or Hellion opening
Step 2: Heavy drop play or marine tank push.
Step 3: Heavy mech defense with drop play to slow zergs expansions.
Step 4: Transition into heavy ghosts once you are approching a split map scenario.

Once you start going ghosts it's important to A) don't stop making them, they are the bulk of your armies power not a support unit and B) still make marines or else ling/bling can still swarm you down.

Get a few maruaders. Stimmed marauders can kill ultras retarded fast given how much easier they are to get.

Ghosts are also good but maruaders will make the zerg call terran op before leaving.

Late game terran is OP. As is Pure Mech vs Zerg.

Other then marauder / hellion all ins I haven't seen a marauder in TvZ in a looooong time, speedlings are too good against them. Also any rax making marauders isn't making marines.

Pure mech vs zerg isn't cost effective enough or mobile enough in split map scenarios due to the reliance on thors, pure mech can work but only as a transition once you've switched to mass mule minining and have defensive PFs set-up and even then broodlords remain problematic. Ghosts have insane frontloaded damage to prevent broodling swarms from occuring, are much faster, cheaper and work with medivacs.

Remember, the first recognized "bonjwa"

Boxer

Savior, didn't arrive until about

2001-2002

2006.

Ftfy, bonjaw was a term invented much later when Savior was large, in charge and slaughtering everything that moved. It was then retroactively given to certain past pro's.

Terran is OP because they have the most options and their ability to tech switch efficiently. It is more expensive for Protoss or Zerg to tech switch (most difficult for Protoss I believe, as they sometimes need an entirely new line of buildings, while zerg generally just need a new building and their production is limited by the number of queens/hatcheries). When Zerg/Protoss get more options available, and they are easier to reach (either by simply more units, or better allocated units) a lot of "Terran is OP" will go away.

Terran tech swapping is the best early game not because of the ease / cost of which they can tech swap but because of the difficulty it adds to scouting them.

Zerg tech swapping is the best end game because it allows them to exploit their capacity to remax by simply making the counter to whatever you had left after their first army died (such as the broods/infestor/sling -> Ultra/Bling/Sling -> Pure Sling remax in ZvT).

Protoss lacks the ability to rapidly tech swap but make up for it by having the strongest deathball which means they aren't the ones needing to remax quickly (though mass warpgate play can allow them to play the aggro if they want).

Re: Terran OP right now a lot of the terrans issues come down to scouting differental (ability to quickly tech swap due to tech-labs/reactors which is compounded by how hard it is to scout terran vs how easily terran can scout you ((com sat vs slow overlord)), the other issue is that ghosts in small numbers were hugely cost effective vs protoss (the recent nerf to emp radius helps here) and the front loaded damage of large numbers of ghosts preventing broodling swarms from ocurring in end game ZvT (another tiny part of the issue there is the lack of light/armored status on ghosts making banelings / ultras more cost ineffective vs them)

Also, Fantasy sucks.

But he will probably be among the few BW pros that will be dominant.

Sc2 terran requires amazing bio play.

[TheButtonmen]

Well that was a fun way to end the night.....

Millenium continues to be a fine, outstanding and professional team I see.

[TheButtonmen]

I'd be bashing any team that did that, they left a set before it was finished letting down the casters, the sponsors, the organizers and the nine thousand people watching it live; nationality has nothing to do with it, don't try to portray anyone who objects to Milleniums actions as nationalist; they fucked up, hurt their already tarnished reputation and showed a lack of respect for IPL, Slayers and the viewers.

Now they deservedly get flak for it.

[TheButtonmen]

What kind of person you are if you can't accept that a team that couldn't play withdraw ? One of their player was asleep (Feast) and they couldn't post-pone so they withdrew. Nothing wrong in that.

Yes, there is something wrong with that, if they want to be considered a professional team then they need to act like one; one of their players didn't want to play and another was asleep, that's a disgraceful. Send out the new player, even if he gets destroyed then this whole issue never happens it's just Slayers destroying another team in the IPL team league, but instead Mil decides to just withdraw without explaining themselves.

And yes if you sign up for a team league with a team of seven players, you're expected to be able to field five of them, hell at the very least field the coach or find a sub.

Losing is fine, taking your ball and going home isn't.

[TheButtonmen]

Slush vs Nestea G1 was basically SC:BW ZvZ, so glad the matchup has evolved from herpderp make roachs until someone dies.

[TheButtonmen]

This game (Slush vs Nestea G1) reminded me of BW ZvZ and makes me very happy with how ZvZ is evolving in SC2.

Game starts at about the 5 min mark.

This game was an epic drawn out ZvT between Losira and MVP.

[TheButtonmen]

God I forgot how annoying it is that consume and spidermine has the same sound.

Also I've gotten so used to SC2 casting that BWs UI is annoyingly clunky at times (even disregarding the lack of production tab because I've heard arguments that it actually hurts the suspense) but smaller things like the inability to see energy on units.

Also Destiny, Catz and incontrol have been in a group skype chat streaming all night discussion / obs a bunch of pro practice games, it's been real good shit.

[TheButtonmen]

A shots of part of the crowd at Dreamhacks final.

They filled half a goddamn stadium.

ESPORTS.

[TheButtonmen]

Also GomTV has made its 18 most popular series free of charge for the next month.

[TheButtonmen]

Flushed.

[TheButtonmen]

I've been watching IPL stream on mute with DeMuslims stream in the background for alternative colour commentary with incontrol,demuslim and 2GD.

[TheButtonmen]

Not the biggest fan of the TSL or Liquid Rising poster but damn do I love my classic TL poster.

[TheButtonmen]

I find SC2 TvT much more difficult then BW TvT actually, BW TvT was much more forgiving before Hellions / Marauders were introduced.

Swarm hosts are incredibly fun, Vipers are finicky at the moment with the recent switch in blinding cloud, Oracles are meh, Warhounds have their place and the recent hard nerf from 1.3 to 1.7 on their autoattacks is helping, Mothership core rushes are hilarious.

[TheButtonmen]

I'd be down for a tournament, I haven't played a serious 1v1 in SC2 in about 8-9 months due to real life obligations so the playing field should probably be a lot more equalized.

Also for those who haven't seen it the latest EG announcement video was hilarious.

[TheButtonmen]

My favourite game of WCS Europe so far.

[TheButtonmen]

Yessssss Scarlett has started streaming on a semi-regular basis and DeMuslim is back to streaming regularly!

Other then when LG-IM team house randomly streams they are my favourite players to watch (Catz takes 3rd).

[TheButtonmen]

Time t

o see how rusty I am

for placement matches!

Spoiler: Battle Report #1 (Warning long)

Early game has nothing happening, we poke around each other and don't see anything too crazy.
At the 7 min mark I'm taking my third when scout lings find a proxy pylon and I figure he's going a gateway timing but four seconds later my lings at the watch tower see this.

Surprise voidray, worst voidray.

He's gone for a fast stargate + warpgate timing which is actually better for me then a pure gateway timing because of my early queens.

Fortunately the majority of my army can shoot up, unfortunately that is because my army is seven units.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough lings to kill his proxy pylon before his army arrived so I pulled back and used the hatchery to buy time.

4 s zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

With all of my queens grouped up, speed finishing I'm ready to move in and the hatchery just finished but he's already dropping a pylon to warp units into the fight.

Queens don't so much charge into battle as waddle.

I send the ling to clog up his army while I focus down the pylon.

Building your pylon between the enemy army and your army is generally not a very good idea.

The lings were quickly mopped up by his army but not before I managed to kill the pylon, this left him supply blocked and unable to spend his bank warping another round of units in.

4 Queens vs 5 Zealots, 2 Stalkers, 1 Voidray and an empty production tab.

Fortunately I can chain transfuses long enough for the next wave of zergling to finish and they tie up the zealots while I start to focus down the voidray.

Red flashing alerts in your base are never a good sign.

Instead of another voidray he built an oracle and takes advantage of the fact all my queens are tied up at the front to hit my mineral line.

It doesn't matter how much of your army can shoot up when it's five screens away.

Twenty seconds later the entire mineral line is dead.

It's basically a flying pack of blue flame hellions.

By the time his attack is finally pushed back and cleaned up it's over ten mins into the game and we're sitting at 27 workers.

30% of my supply is queens by this point.

My wrists are debating mutiny.

He's sitting at the top of a ramp with five sentries and I've got no tech so I'm not able to apply any pressure so I begin to spread creep and spam drones until I've got some sort of economy.

Just pretend something interesting is happening in this picture.

He takes a third and begins to build up a stalker / colossus so in response I keep expanding / pumping drones while building up a huge bank to switch into mutas.

When life gives you

lemons

an immobile opponent who can't put any pressure on you make

lemon-aid

mutas.

I do the typical annoying mutalisk things and keep hit and running mineral lines and exposed buildings until he makes the mistake of 1-aing his entire army to the far side of his main.

Not so much a ling run-by as a ling run-over.

With his economy in shambles he's got no option but to just go for it.

By this point I'm just throwing armies of lings at him to buy time because they're basically free.

By the time he reaches my base I've got more mutalisks then he has stalkers and there's another ten mutalisks in production.

The Queens are also back for blood.

Collssus, not quite imba enough to point up.

He promptly gets run over and gg's out.

[TheButtonmen]

Spoiler: Battle Report #2 (Not as long but still long)

Once again the early game is quite boring.
He decides we're playing sim city and has three command centers up and running by the 5:30 mark.

A truly thrilling start to any game.

He actually doesn't start building units until an overlord slowly drifts into his base.

He thought he was playing Simcity not Starcraft.

Once again when life hands me

lemons

an immobile opponent who can't put any pressure on I make

lemon-aid

mutalisks and paint the map purple.

It turns out a zerg left alone with four hatcheries can make workers faster then a terran with 3 command centers.

By the time he finally moves out I'm sitting at supply cap and have a huge bank built up.

He cunningly flanks one of my creep spreading queens.

God save the queen.

I admire his determination and his macro is impeccable. He keeps building armies and sallying forth to attack me but sadly for him this game is already over.

He's macroing, I'm winning.

Army after army march to their death.

He would have been a terrific general in WW1.

Eventually he ran out of minerals at his bases and the game ended with an anti-climatic GG.

[TheButtonmen]

Spoiler: Battle Report #3 (Fairly Short)

I go for the basic hatch first opening but things take a turn for the weird when my scouting worker realizes that they've hard-walled themself in.

What?

I move my initial overlord into checkout his base because he's obviously up to something.

When your secret plan is foiled by a blimp with a top speed of 3mph you should probably stop and reconsider what you're doing.

Seeing the robotics facility I know that his only option is some sort of warp prism so I just drop some static defense at each mineral line.

At this point I'm starting to wonder if I kicked the matchmakers dog.

To top things off he flies his warp prism directly at the watchtower to make it even more obvious.

The most confusing thing here isn't why he's flying directing into a watch tower, it's why he's researching blink.

2 Queens and 4 lings > his all-in.

He then flies to my natural and tries again there?

This time his masterplan works and he manages to warp in one DT before the queens kill the warp prism.

Success?

He left the second the DT died but the story doesn't end here because I was compelled by a strange mix of confusion and pity to try to help this poor soul.

lol indeed.

I'm 3-0 at this point and really confused.

[TheButtonmen]

There has been a solid week of Parting / Life shittalk leading up to this and the post selection interviews were all quite amusing. I've got some high hopes for this group!

[TheButtonmen]

Thanks blizzard.

[TheButtonmen]

Awww yeah first games of SC2 in years,

its like riding a bike

it's like trying to swim wearing concrete shoes.

[TheButtonmen]

Gold 3 baby, scrublife.

[TheButtonmen]

GSL is dead, long live the GSL.

Ending it with Ready to Roar though was surprisingly nostalgic.

[TheButtonmen]

Co-Op missions need harder modes

Zagara is derp for them all except shooting down the shuttles, the second you hit lvl 5 and get +10 hp / attacks reduce armor to zero for zerglings combined with 8 larva instead of 4 from inject the game feels easy-mode even on brutal. I haven't used the other heroes much yet though so it may just be her (also pairing her with the Artanis so that your zerglings become invunerable for 5 seconds when they should die is hilariously busted).

[TheButtonmen]

Nationwars has been great fun, good games and laid back casters having a good time. Nice surprise to see Elky too!

[TheButtonmen]

for the first time in 16 years of professional starcraft a foreigner has won a kespa tournament

i dont follow the starcraft scene like i used to, haven't played seriously in years and haven't followed it closely since ive been working full time but man it felt so damn good to watch this. years and years of growing up watching local heroes, community members and odd european chaps fight against the korean domination losing far more often then they won means finally getting to shitpost on reddit about faceless foreigners stealing koreans money and watching certain TL posters eat crow was incredible even if im not involved in the scene anymore

[TheButtonmen]

you been playing nay co-op?

[TheButtonmen]

they arent supposed to live that long those could have been drones!