2011 Summer Starcraft Session

Week 4: Scouting, The Anti-Cheese

This week revolves around knowlege about how the game opens. That said, it will also require some heavy multitasking so be prepared.

Method
You want to increase the effectiveness of your scouting and have some actual goals in mind for your initial and future scouts. Mid-game scouting is beyond useful as players transition into new tech and you're left behind with a bad army composition. Don't lose your scout quickly to other probes and also form an idea about what the opponent is doing. Where is he teching to? Am I being all-in'd? What the fuck is that proxy hatch doing there?? Practice scouting and get your ladder games in without losing to cheese.

Logic
Scouting is not just about running a probe into the opponents base to find his location on the minimap. I was guilty of this for a long time and know that others are too. This week's goal is to learn something about the timings of your opponent's early game build orders. Don't memorize their build orders. A few timings here or there are fine, but start out by thinking of what he's spending his resources on and what types of unit compositions he has or may be going for. Just look for the tells like quick gas or super-crazy-wtf early / hidden expansions. It's time to stop losing to cheese and start setting yourself up for a strong endgame.

References

• Custom game for the heavy multitasking part (be prepared to lose): http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/multitasking-trainer/
  
• The liquipedia scouting page is actually pretty useful and specific: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Scouting
  
• Day9 defines scouting at a high level ZvT: [http://blip.tv/day9tv/day-9-daily-303-zerg-scouting-without-scouting-5148250