EPTWhat Day9 Touched Upon
In the recent Day9 Daily #299 Day9 highlighted two very nice concepts. Redundancy and how to avoid it, and purpose and how to extend it from every unit and building. For now I'd like to focus on the concept of purpose he brought up. For instance, not just doing 'X' because of 'X'. Doing 'X' because 'X' can serve the purpose of doing 'X', 'Y', 'Z', and potentially more. For instance building a supply depot not just for the sake of supply but for the sake of perpetual vision of your main base, to complete a wall-off, and so on. And it got me thinking.
A New Perspective
I'm going to take what Day9 said a few steps further. Think of individualism for your units as their lifespan. I want you to literally think of it as their life support. As life itself. When they lose their individualism they no longer exist as an individual unit. Now think of their lifespan as their purpose. Think of purpose directly correlating to the life force of a unit. Now consider that when your unit's purpose expires, so does their individual existence. Now you may be confused as just because your first marine's purpose of denying the initial harvester scout (for a simple example) is over that it does not suddenly explode like a changeling after it has served it's purpose. No... it is quite different. When a unit's individualism dies it's individual existence is what comes to an end (not it's overall existence which may end from battle). The unit is still on the map but as more units are made all the units begin to assimilate into a blob. Where unit's lose their individual value and only become valuable while as one. The unit's no longer have their own purpose rather than to conform to the surrounding units that they make up the blob with. It becomes anonymous and forgotten. It's value diminishes to virtually nothing on it's own as the blob grows of anonymous amasses.
Consider This
I want you to think for a second and consider that this may not be the best way to go about things if this is how you play.
Why?
Reasons For Consideration With Past Evidence
Well think back to BW when there was a lot of small dynamic confrontations going on. Every unit was valuable and key. Both on an individual scale and in the big picture.
In SC2 it seems losing units in blob trade-offs is rather common. Day9 himself has somewhat advocated the idea in the past that the blob syndrome is a sign we have a lot to learn about respecting our units and how valuable they can really be on their own. The big picture is still there, but not the empowering relevance of minuteness and small-scale confrontations.
The Pros
Some side bonuses from forcing more dynamic small-scale confrontations is it allows for the following:
• The relevance of micro increases. If you are confident in your micro this definitely tips the scales in your favour in a fight where micro would have meant less.
• Allows for more multi-pronged attacks to not only be more viable but also more likely to be successful as your opponent would be forced to spread their army thinner than they may be used to and can be very intensive on their APM. Again, where APM may not have been as big of a factor before you can once again chalk up another advantage if you are confident in your speed and efficiency and reap more of a benefit from it.
• Allows expansions to be more easily secured. A commonly advocated time to expand is behind aggression. With constant multi-pronged aggression (or at least map presence) that means you can really expand a lot more often than you would normally be able to get away with.
• Prevents deathballs from occurring. If you are constantly all over the map, their army is never truly one and thus a deathball is a phenomenon that simply can not occur.
• Prevents players from ever getting too comfortable. Especially Zerg opponents.
• Can often lead to outright contains and overreactions stemming from paranoia.
• Pretty much eliminates the possibility of you getting harassed.
• Can allow for constant army trades if you desire this (which is especially good for Zerg players).
The Cons
Of course with anything there are risks:
• Playing to such a dynamic and disperse style can lead to a possibility of losing to an all-in counter-attack (usually derived from an opponent who has lost their cool and is frustrated from the multi-pronged aggression and thus wants to end the game immediately out of spite) if you do not properly regroup in time to defend. Of course you can always force a base race as well in this scenario if it comes to that.
• If you are not confident in your speed and efficiency and your opponent is, a lot of the advantages that would come from playing this type of style could get lost in translation and actually come back to aiding your opponent more than yourself. Beware of advantages as very few ever have a name tag on them.
• The way you arrange the small confrontations and what units you decide to do so with is absolutely imperative because losing each and every one of these encounters badly leads to a complete and utter loss of any map control or presence. Thus, eliminating many if not most of the advantages to playing this style.
Final Thoughts
I have really been seeing a lot of top players playing to this style. A game of ThorZaIN against MC on Tal'Darim Altar for the TSL3 really did begin to show signs that the top scene is gearing their play to more multi-pronged style. And I really think that it is a style worth delving into and considering rather than being guilty of the 'blob syndrome' as Day9 would put it. If we're lucky (due to the nature of the next Funday Monday) we may even see some interesting examples of this style submitted to Day9. Anyways that is all for now guys. Take care, happy gaming, and as for me back to the practice partner search! Later.
