GSL Starcraft II Open: Season 2 is coming!

If it wasn't apparent before, I am a huge fan of watching pro-level Starcraft II matches. I'm also a big supporter of what GOMtv and Blizzard are trying to do with the GSL and the TG-Intel Open. So it will come as no big surprise to you then that I'm stoked for Season 2 that will be coming to a live stream near you October 18th, 2010! You can see the GOMtv news post here.

Experiment in Tier 1 Play: Zerglings, Roaches, & Banelings! Oh My!

You might be wondering why I have a picture of an Ultralisk here at the top of a post about Tier 1 play as Zerg. I would agree that your question is a valid one and the reason I have chosen to taunt you with this image is because if you make the crazy decision to only play Tier 1 in Starcraft II, you will never see this unit. You will never hear the majestic flapping of a Mutalisk's bat-like wings or the musical "Screeeeeeeee" of a Nydus Worm bursting forth into an opponents undefended base. If you limit yourself to Tier 1, you will experience the game in a whole new way.

Forges: Could they be living among you?!

So Patch 1.1 really isn't as terrible as I might have depicted. But what it is doing is forcing Protoss(not so much Terrans) to alter their game plan in order to continue their journey to universal domination. One theory floating around right now is that Cannon Rushes, VR Rushes, and Cannon Contains are going to be more popular than they were before. Yay.

Today I'm going to be reviewing one of my recent games where my opponent went Void Rays and how I dealt with it. Was it pretty? No. Did I do everything perfectly? Never. Do I see places where I can improve? Yes. And that's really the most important thing. So if you're interested, take a gander at my replay here.

Opening Strategies: Winning Starts Here

Don't 6pool.

Ok, now that that's out of the way, we can get on to playing like we expect the game to last longer than ten minutes. Wingweaver over at The Starcraft Noob recently wrote about practicing his early game over and over against the AI so he can get it down quick and effortlessly. There's a lot of sense in that idea, but what if you don't really have an opening strategy to practice? I know when I first started, I didn't.

6 Things I Constantly Forget

I've been spending some time watching replays, mostly because I'm frustrated with my inability to reliably win in Zerg vs Zerg. In this match up, for me at least, all good gameplay habits tend to go out the window and I start to panic as soon as I see the beady little eyes of the enemy zerglings coming to eat my face. Because that's what zerglings eat. My face. Moving on.

Nydus Network: Surfing the World Wide Worm

You can't get more Aliens than this.

Do you know what irks me? Protoss and their silly Warpgates. Do you know what else? Terrans and their Medivac drops of doom. These intermingled hatreds got me thinking about what Zerg has to compare to these particularly irksome tactics from our less slimy opponents and then it came to me. Nydus Worms.

Sure Warpgates and Medivacs are great, but nothing strikes panic in the hearts and confusion in the minds like the sound a Nydus Worm makes as it bursts forth through the crust of the ground and begins to belch out a horde of ravenous Zerg. Surprise attacks are so much fun and so effective, but once I started thinking about giant, upchucking slime subways I wondered if there were more uses to these gargantuan channels of the information super slimeway.

Burrow Play: Why Roaches Rule

When I was first starting in Starcraft II, I had a very loose idea of what the Zerg were. Having barely played the first game, I of course knew that Zerg were bugs on steroids and that they overwhelmed their opponents by sheer speed and numbers. The archetypical Zerg is the zergling, usually. It's what almost everyong thinks of first. Then, of course, they think of Hydralisks, Mutalisks, Brood Lords, Queens, etc. But does anyone's mind first think of Roaches?

Making Up Your Own Mind

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

[Warning: I might come off as griping. Maybe. If I do, I apologize in advance.]

Everyone knows that a 6 pool rush is a cheese tactic that results in you either winning the game against an unprepared opponent or results in you being horribly behind in economy if it fails and most likely losing the game to any sort of counter attack. But why does everyone know that?

Replay: Defensive Victory

You can find the replay here.

After watching Day[9] commentate on Artosis and his interesting style of play here and here, the idea began to really appeal to me. It seems contrary to the way you would think Zerg should be played; they're fast, cheap, and seem perfect for lightning quick assaults and sneaky back-door attacks.

Essentially, he focuses hugely on economy, at least in these beta games, and makes just enough of an army to respond to whatever his opponent throws at him. It takes a watchful eye and amazing micro and macro management, but it's awesome to behold when done correctly as Artosis seems to do.

I think that mindset is influencing my play and in a positive fashion. So I present you with a replay of my own to watch if you want and some of the lessons I took from the game. Please note, I'm aware a lot of mistakes, dropped balls, and such were made in this game. I'm learning and hopefully reducing the glaring errors as I progress. But if you see something I haven't touched on that I did wrong or could have done differently, by all means point it out.

So here it goes...

Lessons from a diary...

With Comm-Link #4 out, a host of new community contributions have been brought to the attention of the masses. One that stood out for me was the Diary of a Zergling, written by Launch on the SC2 community forums. Entertaining? Yes indeed. Informative? I think so, even if everything is not right there on the surface.

I think little, but important, lessons can be learned from this diary so I thought I'd go ahead and give my interpretation of these little zergling chronicles.