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Me and the ladder

Blogs > Malazan
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Malazan
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
England29 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-14 02:05:38
April 14 2011 01:25 GMT
#1
Warning! Some dull content about a nobody SC2 player!

Heya every1, i'm a Master level zerg who recently decided he wants to get good at SC2, whilst i'm at it i thought i would try and make some friends and chronicle some of my experiences here in a blog (this is my first attempt ever at writing one so bear with me

Who i am:

I'm a 22 year old Uni student who studies Computing and lives in the southwest of England. I love reading books and playing games. I have no real RTS experience and haven't played SC1/BW but i enjoy playing other games on consoles and my computer - i also collect Magic the Gathering Cards and rarely see the light of day so i guess i fit the typical nerd profile. I began playing SC2 last summer when it was released and i played the campaign through and found it to be enjoyable. When i really fell in love with SC2 was when my friend introduced me to commentaries (initially husky and hd) which provided a gateway into other higher level casters.

Since then i have mostly played about 2-3 games a day and have about 5-600 1v1 games played and recently have started to play a lot more with most of my uni stuff done. I'm aiming for Grandmasters which should be a realistic task or at least to play against the grandmasters, from there i can see if i have what it takes to beat them and be one of the best!

The future

My plans for this blog are to share my experiences laddering and to try and get some intelligent discussion on matchups and strats. I'll try to find the time each day to post something and i will also try to share my tactics and build orders (they wont be perfect and maybe not even viable at higher levels but they will be what is working for me at my level so experienced feedback will be welcome :D) If anyone has any questions or needs advice (from a Zerg perspective) feel free to ask questions and i'll help if i can. When i start getting to the point where i'm happy with my game-play i'll share some replays and maybe even try setting up a stream.

As a final note any1 who just wants to talk SC2 or wants practice games can message me on bnet, my id is:
Characters name: Malazan
Characters code: 520
Server: EU

If you are one of the few who managed to make it through my blog you have my thanks and i will try to make this worth your time to read

Lookup Steven Erikson, buy his books, read them - thank me later.
Mabilis
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
United States162 Posts
April 14 2011 01:46 GMT
#2
Good luck to you. Are you on the NA or EU server? I hope to be a decent player one day. I just started a few months ago and I'm still in Bronze.
"Nice guys finish last, but we get to sleep in." -- Evan Davis
Malazan
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
England29 Posts
April 14 2011 02:02 GMT
#3
EU player, knew id forget to add something hehe. I remember when i first started playing i got owned hard every game for a long while

Might be cliched advice but focusing on macro is the best way i found to improve, even now my macro is still terrible (usually a supply block at a bad time or mining too much gas/too slow on an upgrade etc)

Glad to see some1 read my post :D you made my day or night as it currently is (watching NASL in EU is hard on sleep cycles lol)
Lookup Steven Erikson, buy his books, read them - thank me later.
iSometric
Profile Blog Joined February 2011
2221 Posts
April 14 2011 03:30 GMT
#4
Glhf with your endevour.
Ladder and I ^^
strava.com/athletes/zhaodynasty
Malazan
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
England29 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-15 01:11:54
April 15 2011 01:10 GMT
#5
A quick update for today

ZvZ Same build as i mentioned in my other post 15 hatch opener into banes, had a good 30 min game of running banes into the other guys base. Seeing a LOT of 10 pools recently or just straight up 6 pool all ins.

ZvT Skipped going mutas for the majority of today due to just dying to timing attks just as mutas about to pop, infestor with faster ling upgrades is working nicely and throwing some roaches into the front lines to absorb the initial tank shelling.

ZvP Lost some some nasty four gates today, defo gunna make at least 1 spine every time from now on (cept for canon openers) Been double expanding at the start when i see the protoss forge expo, might be susceptible to 6 gate as i dont go for burrow tech. Had some success with 3 hatch muta/ling (6gas), if the protoss isnt ready for it the initial dmg to a drone line can win you the game.

Also had lots of protoss complaining that Zerg completely OP today which is annoying because i lost most of my ZvP today :/

Going to try following the spanishiwa no gas builds in zvt/zvp (dont really fancy its chances in zvz)
Link: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=207017

Thinking ill just update the blog once a week but go into some depth on the updates.

Thought id also just mention im 9th in my master league here so i can see if i make any progress in like a weeks time

Lookup Steven Erikson, buy his books, read them - thank me later.
Malazan
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
England29 Posts
April 17 2011 23:43 GMT
#6
Another small update as i don't want to feel like i'm deserting my blog or anything but i added a replay that didn't have too many mistakes (expect tonnes if u have highly critical eye tho) ZvP 25 Mins long

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/165511-1v1-protoss-zerg-gutterhulk#rd:dna;wysiwyg
Lookup Steven Erikson, buy his books, read them - thank me later.
Malazan
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
England29 Posts
April 23 2011 03:49 GMT
#7
I'll start with ZvZ experience this past week. Hatch first i cannot make work its an auto loose to 10 pool which pops lings at 2:40 and its common enough to rule out trying to sneak it in. So this has put me into 1 base play, 14 gas 14 pool still my standard though i am mixing in 14 pool then gas when poll half way done for roach play. It only works well if they go 1 base too. Fast expand speedling into roaches beats it and any player who makes an expasion and roaches + spines whilst im stuck on one base also beats it. Going 14gas/14pool into banelings is almost an auto loss to 1 base roach but beats fast expansions. I also tried the 10 pool and a few variants that i made up because i couldn't find a build order i was happy with and it works nice, auto win if they hatch first on smaller maps, doesnt work well in tal'darim or typhon. 10gas/10pool can work there but depends on your opponent, if they hold your first attack without eco damage you probably loose. I wrote down some timings for my 10 pools if any1 is interested (its not hardcore tested or anything but its what i came up with):
10pool: 6 Lings at 2:40 Queen at 3:20
10pool/10gas 6 Lings at 2:40 Speed at 4:50
10gas/10pool 6 Lings at 3:10 Speed at 4:40 (this gave a better eco than pool before gas but slower
attack)

My overall opinion of ZvZ this week is its 90% build order wars. The safest build for me is 14gas/14pool and sending out drone scout when you make the pool to scout their opening and respond to roach/banes/speedlings/hatch as required.

ZvP i have been opening 14 gas 14 pool 100% of the time to try and improve my basics for the matchup and ive probably had the most success of all matchups this week. 14 gas 14 pool 15 overlord queen 4 lings and hatch on 20. This opening works well and is quite cheese resistant. On close positions all maps but taldarim i go for a 2 base timing attack with roaches/lings. The timing is where i think i have enough stuff to beat thru and and least kill all the sentrys and do some eco dmg. Doesn't always work but i win more than loose with it mostly because protoss are bad
On shakuras i overlord on 14 so i can get 6 lings and the queen out instantly and most of the time protoss forge first so your 6 lings can get in their base before their canons finish - 6 lings are 50% better than 4 lol ^^. You will always do some damage either killing probes or killing canons before they finish if the protoss timings are off. Usually they overreact and then wall in and put too many canons down. Still lose to some 4 gates, close air on metal is annoying, i mostly loose to force field on ramp before i have sufficient roaches out (embarrassingly enough when they are expanding too). But ive won most of my zvps this week with standard lots of roaches harrassing multiple places at once along with drop and some corrupters a bit later to snipe the colossus in transit to diff bases over cliffs etc whilst the harrass is on.

Overall feelings for ZvP this week is that protoss need to improve a lot, the terrans play 10times better than they do but when i start playing the better toss players im gunna get my ass whooped. nexus first expos into forge and stargate are by far the best openings protoss can do imo.

ZvT 2 rax no gas into fast expand with 2 bunkers at the front of your base is the most annoying strat by far. 15 hatch 15 pool seems to be working badly for me and it what i've been doing most of the time this week. i might try 14 hatch 14 pool or something to get out quicker lings this week but i havent played many zvts. Also you can really see the difference between good and bad terrans, good ones know how to micro marines to pwn slow lings badly. Helion openings are easily counter by 15/15/17gas roaches and you sometimes get free wins when they expand behind it with just marine/helions. The best follow up for terrans to the 2 rax no gas expo is siege tech asap get 2-3 tanks a lot of marines and push out, so damn hard to stop.

Overall ZvT the hardest matchup for me and if any1 has general advice or different openers id be appreciative, ill try and look for some or see what the pros do. At pro level play the terrans seem to be too cautious and always delay pushing in onto creep by like 20-30 seconds which loose the game when if they just attacked more aggressively they would win (my opinion anyway).

If you have any questions comments or just want to make fun of me feel free to post.

Currently at 658 points in Masters.
Lookup Steven Erikson, buy his books, read them - thank me later.
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