Straight From Team Liquid: Fruit Dealer GSL Highlights and Music Video

In case you don't check the Blizzard page regularly.

If you saw the GSL or even if you didn't, check out this awesome video created by Teamliquid.net. Everyone loves a good montage!

Patch 1.2: Upcoming Zerg Changes

So it seems Blizzard has not forgotten about the ravenous horde of Zerg players entirely. Dustin Browder(lead designer of Starcraft II) posted some changes he intends to make next patch, along with some interesting numbers that go a long way to show how deep Blizzard is looking into balance issues.

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.

GSL Final: Set 5

Map: Scrap Station

Wow.

Just wow.

GSL Final: Set 4

Map: Desert Oasis

Well, I suppose a straight 4-0 win just wouldn't have been good TV. Despite a great start from Fruit Dealer who managed to counter HopeTorture's marine-only starting force with speed banelings and infestors, the game quickly became unstable with both players losing their main bases.

Fruit Dealer expanded to both islands while HopeTorture grabbed the gold, giving both time to recover some of their production ability. Unfortunately, Fruit Dealer just couldn't recover in time to defeat HopeTorture's mix of marines/thors/tanks.

The score is now 3-1 and the match continues.

GSL Final: Set 3

Map: Kulas Ravine

Bahahahahaha. Bahahaha. Bahaha. Ha.

Sorry, had to finish laughing at the insanity of Set #3 before I could start writing this. Kulas Ravine is by far the worst map for Zerg, exposing them to so many attacks and being incredibly difficult to defend your expansions. At least, this is what is normally true. In the mystical world of Fruit Dealer, maps apparently don't matter.

GSL Final: Set 2

Map: Lost Temple

After the first set, my confidence in Fruit Dealer has gone even higher than it was before if that were possible. Hopefully, his domination continues all the way to the $90,000 prize.

The second set begins with the players spawning as close to each other as possible which is never good for a Zerg player. Fruit Dealer went for Zergling speed again, expanding and slapping down a spine crawler in anticipation of a tank drop which is a common Terran tactic on this map and HopeTorture did not disappoint.
Luckily, Fruit Dealer managed to counter this drop with a pair of Spine Crawlers and three queens, protecting his expansion from the Siege Tank Death Rain and transitioning into Mutalisks.

HopeTorture continued to attempt different drops as he tried to put a dent in Fruit Dealer's tempo, but Fruit Dealer's mutalisks seemed to be everywhere at once and knocked medivacs out of the sky all day long.

This combined with Overlord drops into HopeTorture's main and Baneling drops coupled with infestors/lings/roaches against the Terran army ended the game once again in Fruit Dealer's favour.

GSL Final: Set 1

Map: Delta Quadrant

This set was an example of what a master Zerg player can do and how even the most experienced of Terrans can make mistakes that cost the game.

Fruit Dealer opened with Zergling speed, expanded at 21, and set about building to counter HopeTorture's typical build of tank/marine/thor. You might think that this would set up the map for those large, high food count battles that Terrans seem to do so well in, but you would be wrong.

From sniping medivac drops with his Mutalisks to killing harassing Hellions before they even manage a single kill, Fruit Dealer was on HopeTorture's every move with a counter and expanding at every opportunity. Even when his expos were scouted and HopeTorture pushed in to take one out, Fruit Dealer was there to respond.

With heavy use of Fungal Growth and flawless flanking of HopeTorture's forces with banelings, zerglings, or ultralisks, Fruit Dealer dominated this set from beginning to end. He even built a Greater Spire, simply to bait HopeTorture into making Vikings, without building a single Broodlord.

Masterful.

GSL Final: Intro

I'm going to be trying to blog and watch the matches at the same time, so bear with me. I'll be providing details on each set as they finish and then I will go to sleep. It's 5:55am right now and I probably should have had a nap before this. Anyways, here we go!

When The Universe Steps In: And slaps you with a fish.

Sometimes we get distracted from our goals. My goal is to improve my ladder play while steadily rising up the rankings and I got distracted. I have actually been distracted by a myriad of things.

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.

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?

I'm Making the Push!

After sitting in and around the 30th spot in my particular Bronze division, I decided to focus on one or two strategies/goals in each game and try to break into the Silver division. So far, I've played 13 games today and won 10 of them; apparently, deciding to win is all it takes. As of this writing, I've hit rank 10 and that's enough for me for the day.

Tomorrow I'll post a few things that I'm noticing about both my play and that of my opponents and maybe you too can make that push into the next division, whatever one that might be.

Banelings: Addendum

For your viewing pleasure: The Banetage



Time marker 1:25 and 3:15 are exceptional. It's always the marines that seem to walk over them too.. poor marines.

Banelings: 101 Uses

No, this will not be a list of 101 uses for Banelings, despite their effectiveness in all manner of household tasks from removing soap scum to whitening teeth. This post refers instead to Banelings 101, the basics really, and how to use them more effectively.

Anyone can just mass 10-20 banelings and send them on their merrily suicidal way, but that is usually both ineffective and inefficient. For one, they're a one-shot deal; win or lose, you don't get them back. You've already sacrificed a speedy little zergling for one of these bloated bed bugs, so to waste them on improper applications only increases their final cost in both resources and time.

Below are a few ways I try to make each of my banelings count for a little more.

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.