[Ramblings] Terran Lategame

Angel_

United States1617 Posts

May 19 2012 15:50 GMT

When I say Ramblings, I do mean: incoherent, maybe non-sensicle, out my ass rambling based solely on whatever crosses my mind that I might not even agree with when I'm more awake. There's the forewarning.

So, right now I want to talk about terran lategame. I got bored and was playing on my zerg account cuz I was bored, and it crosses my mind to play some games as toss while I'm on a losing streak because fuck why not and it used to be my toss account anyway. I get two PvT, a PvP and two PvZs, and I disconnect during the PVP. Actually I don't disconnect my client crashes, but whatever.

While I'm sitting playing with my protoss army a lot crosses my mind and I think about my terran (I main terran), and I just sit and think for a while. As toss, in the midgame I have an army. Even if I'm playing really defensive and it's a heavy sentry army and my tech is slower than if I'm just greedy as shit, I have an army. And that army transitions into an army with either colossi or templar, and then an army with both, that's either zealot heavy or stalker heavy. And then it transitions again into something with a few less gateway units and a few more archons or whatever. Obviously I'm generalizing as to the actual mixture and composition because that changes from your opponent and map and bla bla bla, not important. The important part is the transition.

And I think about zerg and there's a similar theme. If you want to try to stay on something like Ling/bane/muta all game long, as long as you keep your opponent in the right phase of the game with you you can do that. And if you don't want to do that you can transition out of it by losing your mutas carefully, as you add infestors, and then tech to broodlords while you throw up spinecrawlers at key places. Or whatever.

As a teran that doesn't happen in TvP. I think there are a lot of issues with TvP that just involve people being in a learning curve and positioning and developing and stuff like that, but I think a big aspect really is that we see terran insist on this mid-game composition. And the immediate rebuttal is, "well angel if there was another one...." or "don't you think they would have tried that if there was...", and really I honestly say...sure, but that doesn't really mean anything. I mean, look at protoss. How long did it take to get off 4-gating? Do you not remember the same arguments? Or about not knowing what to do with gateway+ colossus to get past that because teching felt so vulnerable for a while? Everyone is still learning and I think that's a part of it, and that by saying "well no they can't" , or "well obviously they've all tried EVERYTHING" is just really defeatist and silly. Especially because strategies that weren't viable four months ago...suddenly are as people play better, as people micro better, as the map pool changes a little bit, as patches happen, as people start to be more or less greedy or attack more or less in the early and late game, as opponents open differently.

Right now though,
[image loading]

becomes

yaaaaaaaaay barbeque!
and
[image loading]

or something with
[image loading]

cuz fuck colossi, or we're remaxing on pure MMM

which eventually will just turn into
[image loading]

strangely familiar
[image loading]

i'm having deja vu

But then what's the alternative? And, more importantly, how the do we get there without playing insanely greedy and basically praying our way through the mid-game?

[image loading]

how did we get there? Where do we go from there?

Mass BC?
BC Raven?
BC Raven with Marines to buffer?
BC Raven with Ghosts (for snipe) and Hellions to buffer?
What are we buffering when BCs have 3/3?
Are we basically massing BC Raven and relying on Marines/Hellions/a few tanks and roaming vikings around home to defend against warp-ins and run arounds?

[image loading]

it looks badass. Maybe some thors?

Which brings me to reinforcing:
[image loading]

the terrifying remax

As a zerg, you have a larva mechanic that's just pretty awesome for remaxing quickly, and for making lings to harass and do run-bys. For toss, Zealot warp-ins are pretty good. If you max on anything as a terran however, you're dedicating yourself pretty much to what you make and not losing it. I don't mean that as a complaint either, just that these are kind of your options:

[image loading]

[image blocked]

[image loading]

i have a plan

[image loading]

shit

I guess the point of all these pictures is, keep playing with your units and compositions. There's something to try to get to, and there's a way to deal with all the weaknesses that whatever that will have will have. And there's some way to get there from the mid-game. And that's not saying that MMMVG just doesn't work either. Because it does, and as people get better at micro-ing and positioning and figuring out how to keep home safe and where they engage it'll be even more apparent that it does.

Sleep time. Or laundry time. Whatever.

[image loading]

I quit

SeaSwift

Scotland4486 Posts

May 19 2012 18:29 GMT

MVP had the right idea vs Squirtle in the finals, but he miscontrolled at a crucial moment. However, I don't know how much you can gather from that game. It seemed to be very unique to the map (hints there to mapmakers?) and relied on what seemed to be a 20min nr.

Angel_

United States1617 Posts

May 19 2012 18:46 GMT

On May 20 2012 03:29 SeaSwift wrote:
MVP had the right idea vs Squirtle in the finals, but he miscontrolled at a crucial moment. However, I don't know how much you can gather from that game. It seemed to be very unique to the map (hints there to mapmakers?) and relied on what seemed to be a 20min nr.

hm? i actually didnt watch the bc game. only the last one. I was packing to move. T_T excited for vods

RageCommodore

Germany912 Posts

May 19 2012 18:48 GMT

MVP's mass BC ghost was freaking insane and would have won him the game if he hadn't miscontrolled in the deciding moment. I'm not too sure if this can be employed more often, given that the map favored that sort of play. Still, Terrans can learn a lot from this game (especially that you need to build PF's vs late game Toss - Squirtle wasn't even able to attack because of them). I think we need more replays of ghost/ BC, given that this was kind of a unique game in many ways.

Anyways, I think you're right, there might be a lot more possibilities for Terran lategame. The only thing that bothers me is that because MVP lost, every Terran now thinks that the strategy was bad (which it wasn't).

hm? i actually didnt watch the bc game. only the last one. I was packing to move. T_T excited for vods

Go and watch that right now, it was f*king nuts O_O

avilo

United States4100 Posts

May 19 2012 23:47 GMT

This is pretty relevant to last night's GSL games :D

If he'd EMP'd the mothership you cannot lose with a max BC ghost army. Nice to see a GSL level player finally execute this lategame good. Though he forgot/didn't know or think about putting ghosts in his main bases to prevent mothership recall.

The only problem is you can only reach this comfortably on maps that you can split in half easily.
I have played many games like this already, and you can liken this to PvZ lategame, where everything hinges on finding the mothership and EMPing it. If you EMP it twice you win, if you let yourself get vortexed, you lose.

BC/ghost/nuke beats everything Protoss has because you EMP templar/mothership, and then even if they remaxed on voids/carriers, you have about 15-20 yamatos meaning 15-20 free void ray kills if you micro well, or about 10 free carrier kills.

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[Ramblings] Terran Lategame

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