Starcraft day 4 - TvT problems D:

Hey TL! Today is day 4 of my Starcraft journey!

Today's blog will be more standard, checking out how I performed in my games! For my build, I do a 1-rax expo into a 3rax 1fact 1port 10 minute push with stim ^^ or at least, that is my plan. I am playing worse than I was yesterday, so that's a shame ):

Starting up my ladder games, the first game is a TvT on Cloud Kingdom! Now, for the way I'm trying to play, my expo should be going up at around 3:45, and so far, so good, everything's going well ^^

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Nearly perfect ^^

I don't really scout yet because I'm awful and have no idea what anything I scout even means yet, and I don't want to psyche myself out by assuming a build that doesn't happen, so I just don't scout and hope that my macro is good enough to win... That being said, the game is playing out fairly standard, I get my natural up, I start getting stim, I'm adding on production facilities, when suddenly...

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Oh dear god.

I kill it off, try to start up an engineering bay, but round 2 has already started. I won't add in another screen, but eventually, I ward off the second banshee, and the third one appears in my base. I add in missile turrets to my worker lines and end up being just fine ^^ for now.

However, looking at the second benchmark I'm trying to hit, 50 workers at 10 minutes, I am very far from my goal. 32 workers with 7 killed is very very poor. Oh well, can't change it now. Moving on with the game as best I can. Now, at this point, I could have easily killed him. Compare:

Me:
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Not pictured 2 medivacs. Pretty decent for a gold leaguer :D

Him:
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Marines in the upper left, tanks spread out, literally nothing else.

I should have scanned and then just crushed him, but alas, I am not so clever. I keep macro'ing and try to get my supply higher, my worker count as well. I push out very very late, and our armies meet in the middle of the map.

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Check out all that useless stimming in the back :D

However, the tanks (not shown) seige up behind the destructible rocks, and I am unable to do anything to take down his army. We basically do the classic mexican standoff that TvT is bound to become, until he brings back the unit that caused me so much trouble earlier:

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PLS TERAN. PLS NO!

Eventually, the amount of tanks the opposing Terran had was just too much for me to handle, and combined with the Banshee pressure that I couldn't respond to, I had to tap out.

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So, after doing that first game, I realize that putting in screenshots actually consumes a TON of time. And since I started writing this blog late (grrr, MMO's), I'm not going to do screenshots for the other 4 games, because I wouldn't be able to finish the blog before I fell asleep x.x

Game 2 is a TvP on Entombed Valley. As always, I open up with my 1rax expo build. I scout on this map because it is a 4 player one, so I want to be sure where to go when I push out. I manage to get my expo down at 3:41 this game, which is awesome! It's nice to have a consistent start. I find him, and he's early expanding as well. Fun, a macro game. I'm confident of winning straight up macro games in my league. I accidentally put down 2 reactors instead of 2 tech labs, no big deal though. I actually forget to start Stim until SUPER late, so that was horrible, but I push out at 10 minutes regardless. My worker count was abysmal again, this time sitting at 43. I keep forgetting to build those SCV's :/ Anyway, I push out at 10 minutes, chill at his natural ramp for a couple of seconds waiting for Stim to finish, start +1 just in case he holds my push and then go in for the attack. I stim, A-move up the ramp, reinforce with more MMM, and he crumbles easily to my attack. GG well played by me ^^

The third game is another TvT on Cloud Kingdom, and I'm pretty sad about this game. Looking at the replay, I could have easily won, but I played like an idiot and ended up losing a game where I was 50+ food ahead -___- Anyway, I open up the same way, getting my natural down at 3:44 this time. He goes for a similar style, except his timings are much worse than mine. My 10 minute worker count this time is 46. Steadily rising, good to know. I push out with a very sizable force, and the food count is 97 to 54. Again, there's no reason I shouldn't have won this game. I push out with stim and +1 almost finished for a brutal timing attack. However, I'm met with tanks defending his natural. Instead of just dropping up into his main, I try to bust his front and lose my entire army. At the same time, he did a sneaky drop in my main that I didn't notice, but it took out my entire worker line, as well as a few production facilities. Even though I was still even in supply, I felt super behind and gg'd.

Game 4 is a TvZ, first one of the day :D on Shakura's Plateau. Fun game. You know my opening, I don't have to keep saying it. Natural at 3:38 this time, I made an Orbital at 15 instead of 17 is the reason behind this early expo. As I'm just doing my opening, a bunch of lings come up to harass. I pull up the depot, preventing a run-by into my main, and clean up the harass. I know that when Zerg makes a ton of lings I have to worry about the baneling bust, so that's exactly what I prepare for. Surprisingly, it doesn't come until after 10 minutes >__> The worker count is 38, but I had lost 6 workers to the initial ling harass, so doing decent, but still not as well as yesterday. His bust hits, dealing absolutely zero damage. He had so much invested that I simply counterattacked with my current army, but he manages to clean it up after a while with lings. However, I persist, and eventually get double factory pumping out seige tanks, and I eventually leapfrog the tanks to his base for a victory.

The final game of the day was a TvP, once again on Shakura's. This game was pretty straightforward. Expo down at 3:45, no hitches in the build. He opens up pretty normal as well, but my macro is simply better. 48 SCV's at 10 minutes compared to his 37 probes. A decent lead, but once again, I wish my worker count was still better. Anyway, I hit my timing attack with Stim, +1 and Conc shells and demolish him for the win.

That's it for today, sorry about the lack of effort in today's post, I'm really tired and got really spent trying to get those screenshots in. Describing the first game took as long as doing the other 4 combined >.< I'll have to start earlier next time. Although I didn't play as well as I did yesterday, I can attribute this to less AI games. I played a few AI games yesterday to warm up and I played better, so I'm going to do that more now. Also, in both of the TvT's, I had problems with knowing what kind of a position I was in in terms of supply. I need to be more active about having map control so that I can know exactly what the situation is and when I can attack. Both games I could have won if I was smart about my attacking.

My macro is getting a lot better, and my APM is steadily going up. I hope to keep improving! Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read about mine, it really means a lot to me.

Starcraft day 4 - TvT problems D:

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