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So I'm thinking of coming back to SC2, after having stopped for several months after reaching Plat as Protoss. But I have absolutely no idea which race to go: All four options have their pros and cons. But more importantly, the options also involve assumptions that might be wrong, and/or questions that need answering. Because of this, I decided to write a blog about it. So here's my list of factors:
Terran:
Pros: Great variety of builds, seems the most flexible of all three races. Would allow me to play almost any style I wanted and switch them up frequently if I chose.
Would force me to improve my APM and become a better player.
Cons: Requires high APM, which I don't have yet.
Significant micro needed: I'm bad at micro, and I lag a bit in SC2. The lag should be alleviated when I move soon though.
Questions: How does TvT work these days? The mirror matches seem the worst parts of SC2. PvZ, ZvT and TvP are all interesting matchups on both sides, or were a few months ago.
Zerg:
Pros: Defensive macro style, which I enjoy, even as Protoss, which I used to play.
Very little micro required at low levels, except in defending cheese and such.
Would force me to improve game sense and scouting, making me a better player.
Cons: When I used to play, Zerg had a lot of trouble, especially with scouting. Especially Terran were able to deny scouting very easily, and force Zerg into a guessing game where they had no idea what was coming, and could not defend against everything.
Requires game sense and map control. Very reactionary.
ZvZ is very aggressive and cut-throat, but in a way seems better than PvP, as skill plays more of a factor at high levels from what I have read.
Questions: Can Terran still deny scouting vs. Zerg in that fashion and force them into a guessing game loaded in the Terran's favor? If so, I simply don't want to play ZvT.
Is ZvZ more stable now, or does it still involve a lot of cheese and all-ins on ladder?
Protoss:
Pros: Much better at it, or was, than the other two races. At my peak, was moving past macro being the only thing I had to work on seriously.
Suits me well: There's a good reason I picked it in the first place after all.
Cons: PvP turned me off during my last phase of playing SC2.
Force field usage is difficult with lag.
Questions: Has PvP settled down? Is it possible to really dominate PvP like other mirrors? That would be a good metric of skill in the matchup.
Random:
Pros: Would allow me to play all three races, and I do have an interest in all three.
Would make matchups like ZvZ and PvP less common, perhaps rare enough to maintain my interest.
Would give me a wide overview of the game, and allow me to pick a race later.
Cons: Would have to learn all three races at once.
Harder to advance, require more skill to climb the ladder.
Potential for being cheesed a lot more.
Questions: Do people cheese Randoms a lot? I know when I played vs. Randoms, I always assumed they would cheese and was usually right, but I never cheesed back.
So that's basically my master list. I could go into more detail, but those are the major things, and I don't want this blog post to become a TLDR, though it probably already is. Advice is certainly appreciated: Real advice, not "Play Terran it's OP lolz" or "Don't play Zerg, Zerg get raped every patch" or something.
Thanks in advance!
 
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It really depends on your style. The best advice you're going to get is try every race out for an ample amount of time, and then decide based on which one feels natural to you. It also helps that you have a favorite progamer whose style you like, and so you follow his race. good luck.
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Questions: Can Terran still deny scouting vs. Zerg in that fashion and force them into a guessing game loaded in the Terran's favor? If so, I simply don't want to play ZvT.
Is ZvZ more stable now, or does it still involve a lot of cheese and all-ins on ladder?
Yes, terran can still deny scouting especially with hellion expand builds. Your best bet is to hide a zergling early on, overlord scout, then scout the front with your zergling. It doesn't give you a full read, but you can usually see when there's a big all-in coming like hellion maurauder, two port banshee and so on.
A lot of terran one base all in are actually thwarted by clever building placement (see games by Leenock and DRG) and solid build orders involving spines, evo chambers, macro hatches and a third queen to be able to react quickly to ground and air play. It's tricky early on, but ZvT is by far my most fun matchup to play. It's honestly really balanced past that 'risk of 1 base' phase. Try to hide a zergling or drone behind his mineral line at the natural. I'm mid masters and still get away with it most of the time. That way if you see no natural after the reactor hellion, you know some sort of pressure is coming.
Then, ZvZ is still mostly cheese. Embrace it. When I don't feel like playing ZvZ I all-in, and when I do I don't all-in, and get more than 50% win rate in either case, so I don't mind it that much.
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You can't really cheese a random, since many cheeses only work against a certain race. You wouldnt cannon rush a terran for example.
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All these people asking for advice about which race to play need to understand that there is more than one way to play one race. Every race can be played in a macro-oriented or allinish-agressive style. Also micro is required in all three races (more and more as you climb the ladder), its just different in the detail for example marine splitting, mutalisk micro, blink stalker, different sorts of spellcaster. Focus firing, microing back unhealthy units,etc is essential to all races.
You can play terran emulating goody or emulating mkp. It would be a experience like playing two different races.
My advice: Just pick the race you think that has the coolest units, best abilitys, and especially the greatest wow-moments when playing (for example: I just blew up a planetary with banelings or Holy Shit my banshee micro is so good i never lose it or AMAZING forcefields or omnom the whole map is in lila creep or hahahaha my 2rax make you lose in 5.5 minutes you mad? or BÄÄM Archon toilet.)
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Pick a high level/profile player, who you like the most. Then emulate him.
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I think you should chose zerg (because of the special gameplay zerg has - not because some say it is harder, but because it is different and you learn to approach the game differently) or random and ONLY play unorthodox styles.
I wonder a lot if I should shift to random sometimes, but I really want to hit master keke
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While I do agree that Terran is more micro-intensive in the lower levels, I don't think Terran is a flexible race. At all.
Terrans have many choice, true, but once you have your game plan, you can't switch. You can't go for a certain bio build and then go mech. There are 3 different kinds of upgrades for bio, mech and air. And 3 different production facilities. I'd say that Terran are the least flexible, and Zerg the most flexible.
Also, I'd also add that in the lower leagues, it probably looks like this I think: Protoss>Terran>Zerg, because it's a lot of poor macro and a-click battles and the Toss just has an amazing firepower while Zergies usually don't know what's going on and when to drone up.
Around Plat and Diamond, I'd say that it goes Zerg>Terran>Protoss, because Zergs actually become good and many battles the Terran faces are very micro dependant (marine split for example) while Diamond micro is not that good.
And finally, in Master league, I'd say we go Terran>Zerg>Protoss, because Terran micro has a great potential and you can kill pretty much anything with marines as long as you control them well.
This was just a fantasist side note and shouldn't be taken too seriously, but that's how I feel.
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Don't play random if you want to improve a lot. Improvement is driven by repetition. Random, by definition, offers the least repetitive environment.
I made the decision a few months ago to switch off of random. I really enjoyed a lot about all three races, so my decision came down to the mirrors. When I switched, the mirror-match metagame that I found the least infuriating was TvT, so I went with Terran. Metagames have since shifted, particularly in PvP.
PvP no longer demands a 4gate. It's still very heavy on the 1-base play with later expanding than other races, but it can reach a stable state. The general patch direction has been trying to move the meta-game towards PvP being more a more stable matchup. Moreover, with the Archon and Immortal buffs of late, there are now viable styles of mid-late game PvP that do not demand colossus. That said, it is still brutal before you reach 2-base. I would watch RGNinori for a cool, stable PvP style.
ZvZ metagame is no longer just zergling-baneling. Meticulous attention to your opening and unit placement can get you to the point of 2-base play relatively early, with the current 2+ base meta-game vacillating between roach-infestor, roach-hydra, and zergling-muta. Do keep in mind that the blood-pressure-spiking zergling-baneling phase of the game still exists and is still stressful as all get-out.
TvT below the highest tier is still tank-line v. tank-line. Below the highest tier of play, breaking tanklines is really hard, and you won't be able to beat tank-based play with strict bio if you are only incrementally better than your opponent until you get to the upper echelons of terran. Mech is very hard but viable. It's always been the most dynamic mirror, but has it's moments of crazy. If ZvZ can see food advantages shift by the dozens with a few clutch banelings, a single positioning decision can swing at TvT by >50food.
Hope this helps.
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If you want to have fun by screwing around, go go gadget random! I occasionally consider getting another account just so that I can occasionally random it up without hurting my ladder rank.
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Questions: Can Terran still deny scouting vs. Zerg in that fashion and force them into a guessing game loaded in the Terran's favor? If so, I simply don't want to play ZvT.
Is ZvZ more stable now, or does it still involve a lot of cheese and all-ins on ladder?
It's not really that much you need to scout, what you are basicly trying to find out is if it's an allin and what units he will be pressuring/allining you with. Reactor helion is easy to scout as you will have lings out by then. Banshee can be tricky, check marine count and gas timing, I always get a early-ish evo chamber for ups anyway so banshees aren't really that much of a problem for me. Thit is atleast what I try to find out and I'm a diamond Z doing pretty well.
ZvZ is not as cheesy, but cheese is still there, the most popular ones are bling busts (atleast from what I've seen) from one-base. In ZvZ the most versatile opening IMO is 14/14, expo at 20 bling nest when I have enough gas, because you can go 1base blings, speedling allin, expand or whatever. ZvZ is also extremely micro intense if there are bling/ling vs ling/bling or similiar situations (defending 6pool maybe), but that's the early game. Late game ZvZ is almost the same as any other matchup.
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Thanks for all the advice: There's some interesting stuff in here. Namely, I've found that Terran is a bit less flexible than I thought (Flexible in terms of openers, not so much later on) and Zerg is a bit better than I thought, with ZvZ improving significantly. Arcane86 especially gave me some good information, though I'm still considering random, with the intent of switching to another race when I have more info.
The advice hasn't made my decision, but it has made the likelihood of my making a good decision much higher. Thanks! (And if anyone else has advice, I'd be happy to receive it: More is good in my books, on this problem at least.)
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On December 13 2011 22:26 Jh wrote:
Pick a high level/profile player, who you like the most. Then emulate him.
Tell me how that works if you like MMA.
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EPT
