EPTiCCup Profile: http://www.iccup.com/gamingprofile/Salv.html
Stats: 11-10 / D / 1950
If I had an easy time with opponents last update, I more then made up for it this time. Last time I went 5-1, today I went 3-7; not good ya'll. However it's not all bad news. Ironically enough, in the day where I went 5-1, I didn't really learn much. My opponents weren't that good and I just walked through them. Today was completely different as my opponents just walked right through me, save for three. So what's going on? Why did I wind up losing 7? Six of those being in a row? Let's get down to it:
Z v P
Alright ya'll, I'm just going to start with Z v P from now on, it's my format now I guess. Any way, damn, today was rough. I did much better versus Terran's today then I did against Protoss, but I'll talk about the former in the Z v T section, that don't belong in here. Running into some problems with my neo-sauron build, and they are:
- First things first, making two lings is a bad idea ya'll. I just realized today that I am bad, baaaad at keeping track of my opponents choke. I usually do not see when my opponent moves out, when he sneaks a probe, sneaks a zealot, it's all surprises to me. That really sucks because if I open two lings, the entire point is that I need to be able to respond really quick. Either I have to get those zerglings out to take care of business, or I have to delay a bit. Either way that's a problem that needs correcting.
I am thinking I just need to realize when I need to make more zerglings. I have been spoiled by Protoss' who don't do jack until I have hydralisks out, and apparently that doesn't fly at D+ at this point in the season. I need to really keep on top of things and make sure that if he is gradually producing zealots, that I gradually produce lings and just keep up with him. Also I need to look up when I add the sunken colonies, I can't remember when it is and I keep thinking it's after I had my den, but that is way too late I think. I'll find out. - Corsairs. I hate corsairs. It's funny when you play Protoss and you comment on how it's difficult to manage corsairs, or that they are easy to counter, but damn once you play Zerg, it's not easy to defend. If you have scourge it's easy, you simply clone a pair and there you go, but if you got hydralisk, it's hard. There are have been many games where I just can't do much about his corsairs and it fucks me up. My overlord at his natural dies, my overlord in his base dies and then he snipes some more and then he attacks with a +1 timing and I die.
The good news is that this is all correctable. I think partially the problem are the zerglings. Once I have that under control, I will be able to focus on my build more and make sure I have my spire coming ASAP, as well as my overlord speed, both of which should help remedy this annoying situation.
It's really those two things, but when you think about it, having those problems can really compound. Having to keep maynard away drones, split up my zergling forces and keep track of my BO is hard. Then having to follow-up with dealing with corsairs is even harder if your spire or overlord speed is even the slightest bit late. I suppose it's just practice I need, I'll find out more this weekend I am sure.
One last thing is that most of my ZvP losses came from trying out various builds. I tried a three hat mutalisk build twice, one of which was a closer game then usual, and a four hat build, both of which I need to have explained to me because I am clueless what I am doing. Ahzz told me about a neo-sauron lurker build and I tried it twice, I think I am 1-1 with it, but I really cannot judge builds until I fix the problems I stated above.
Z v T
What a turn around. If you don't know, Ahzz's TvZ is around C+ or B- level and I was practicing with him. I got rolled in all the games, but I learned quite a bit and finally decided to cut the foolishness and just go standard mutalisk. I lost some games today to just much superior players, and one game where I had no idea what to harass with my mutalisk [both games Ahzz will check for me] but overall I am feeling pretty good against an opponent that doesn't completely outclass me. I think those games I win.
So what turned this match up around for me? Read on:
- Make six lings ya'll. Do it. Once again like ZvP, theorycrafting, it sounds good to just make enough lings to take care of the scout and then make them when you need them, but that don't work. I regularly need those zerglings and it helps me get rid of his scout. It's not a big deal, but a little something.
- I benefited a lot from some standard rules & timings that Ahzz helped me with. I worked on my gas timing, making sure I would have 900/900 min/gas by the time the spire popped, which is a huge deal, as well as splitting my time between harass and management. There has only been one case where I was completely stumped on what to do with my mutalisk, and I think that was also just a bad game, but overall I can do damage while teching lurkers in an effective manner now.
- Scourge. Those pesky dropships were doing a number on me before, but now that I have been owned by them multiple times, I always make sure I have a sunken in my base to by time in case he does drop, but more importantly, I have patrolling scourge that have nabbed multiple vessels already.
I can easily and honestly say that practice is what helped most here. After a while I just seem to remember what I need to do next, whereas before I would be scratching my head wondering what else to do. There are still some things I suck at, like keeping up my macro and hotkeying all my units, but that should come with time. I have pretty much decided that I will just use three hat muta into quick hive like all other Zergs, which is cool, but I am still terrible versus unorthodox builds.
In all games versus strange builds, I usually wind up massing and trying to win in a giant attack because I'm not sure how to transition or how to make sure I tech while staving off harassment. It's a pain in the ass and I now hate wraiths nearly as much as I do corsairs.
With any luck, I can correct these mistakes I listed and move on to C- this weekend. I'm rather confident I'll be able to do that, because even the players I played all had good stats and were all C- or C last season, so it wasn't even like I was playing actual D+ players. Here is the latest rep-pack. Not much to see and there are some pretty embarassing games in there, but whatever, I'm putting in all the games I played. Whether it was some lame mass ling counter to a build I didn't know, or just playing bad and ragequitting [with the gg still], it's all here!
Replay Package
