EPTPrevious blog
I played a few games shortly after my last blog, but none of which were worthy of any battle reports. I’ve spoilered some thoughts on those games. Note that I used to be C- high on ladder, so not very impressive, but I used to practice heavily when I ran my CSL team, and I was going 50/50 with C+ players, and able to take the odd game off of B- or B level players, so I knew I could perform quite well when I wanted to. However, taking years off of the game hurts, and I know I’m playing like shit relative to how I used to play. And, honestly, even when I was playing back then, I still felt like I was playing like crap, because I knew just how much room for improvement I had. It truly seems like as I got better, I found that I had more to improve than I had before…..
+ Show Spoiler +
First game
Zvz - close air on python, so it becomes a drone war because we have eyes on each other so early, he does a weird sunken rush, and I defend it, but it hurts my economy more than it should have and I die to a speedling all-in before mutas come out.. I was thrown off my game, and never recovered.
2nd game
ZvZ - Rematch - cross positions on python, he does a speedling all-in vs. me teching to mutas. I die before mutas come out. In both of these games I should have made a sunken in my main, but I was greedy and didn’t, and died outright because of it (I wasn‘t sure if I had the economy to be able to make a sunken and still get my mutas out on time, turns out that both times I would have had enough minerals to place that sunken).
3rd game
ZvP on FS. Korean smurf or something, he was way to fucking good for the D level. I tried 3 hatch spire vs. his sair opening, dealing with his initial poke with zealots well imo. I sacrificed a dozen lings to kill his 3rd while it was building to slow him down, and his initial sair did very little, I did manage to surround it with scourge from 3 directions and kill it after it got a single overlord kill, but I still wasn’t able to get enough hydras out to beat his storms and DT that were on the way. And I know why - I was floating a lot of minerals and gas that I shouldn’t have been, I took my 2nd and then 3rd gases way too early, and didn’t place my 4th and 5th hatcheries soon enough, which fucked me over by having floating resources without any larvae to use them. I’ll have to study the build order a bit more to get the timings figured out, because I feel like I played the very opening of the game pretty solidly.
4th game
ZvZ on Chupung Reyong, he does an early ling attack, I fend it off easily and beat him once my mutas come out, since he tried going hydras immediately following the failed zergling attack (lol?).
5th game
Rematch - ZvZ on Circuit Breakers - Similar openings by both, no damage done with lings at the beginning. He then decides to go drone heavy and makes 2 sunkens to defend, and techs to mutas this time, while I spend larvae on lings, putting my economy behind (I had not scouted him until after the sunkens were up, unfortunately, or I would have made more drones myself). I win several small muta/scourge skirmishes, and kill a few drones here and there, while my economy is mostly untouched by him, evening up the game pretty quickly. Eventually he slips up and tries to squeeze some drones in, and I punish him for it. Honestly, he wasn’t that good (was not able to snipe a single scourge, and his cloning was bad), so it wasn’t a very impressive win. I could have gotten a 3rd game from him, but declined it because I knew how it was going to end, and I wanted a stronger opponent (I‘d rather lose and learn something/play a hard fought match than win easily and learn nothing from it).
6th game
ZvT on FS. I open overpool and go for a 2 hatch muta play. He does a 1 base 3 rax sunken bust-type play. I only make 3 sunkens and die in a horrible fire. He sent out an initial force which 3 sunkens would hold off, but I didn’t scout his reinforcements until it was too late.
7th game
Rematch - ZvT on FS. Same opening, same play by him, except I make 3 sunkens initially, and scouted his reinforcements heading out so I could place 2 more, and I hold off his all-in, while killing his SCVs with mutas. Game over. This guy was probably the strongest player I faced that day though. He had over 300 apm, and he had pretty amazing hotkey usage. His micro and game sense was pretty sick (both times he managed to kill an initial overlord of mine right under my nose), his scouting was pretty intense too, it was crazy tough to kill his SCV. His macro was crazy good too, he never seemed to have more than 100 minerals unless he was building something worth more than that, yet never had anything queued up. I just learned from my mistake in the previous game and beat him because of it. You can’t do the same thing twice in a row without expecting your opponent to adjust to you.
8th game
ZvT on FS. I open overpool 11 hatch, we are cross position. I deny his scout, but I gain zero information myself. I’m sitting outside of his base, teching to spire for 2 hatch muta, when suddenly 2 vultures pop out. I delay them with my opening zerglings long enough to get a sunken up at my natural in time to defend the vulture runby I’m expecting. Suddenly a wraith is in my base. At this point, I have no idea what to expect, so I switch plans and go for hydras, seeing as he still hasn’t expanded yet, so I’m expecting some kind of all-in, likely involving mech (and lower tech units are better vs. mech from my experience, so I‘m planning mass hydra/ling with some lurkers in case he‘s doing some kind of biomech push). I fend off the wraith with minimal losses, and suddenly a dropship drops 8 marines in my natural. I fend it off losing 2 drones, only to have it turn around and hit my main from a weird angle a minute later. I clean it up with minimal losses, but he has expanded in the middle of this. I try to take my 3rd in response, but he pushes out with a big MM and tank force, and clears me out. I have no fucking clue what I did wrong, but I was on the defensive all game, and took relatively little losses prior to his push. And the funny thing is that mutas would have worked better vs. him than what I did, which was a hydra/lurker/ling force. I should have just stuck with it.
9th game
ZvP on FS. I open overpool into 3 hatch before gas. Cross positions. I put down my 3rd hatch in my nat to help with a sim city, which fucks me over in the long run, because I can’t hold my 3rd when I need to take it. I need to scout a bit better/earlier so I know that I can safely take my 3rd with my third hatchery when doing a greedy economic opening like that. I get run over by a standard zealot archon attack.
10th game
ZvT on FS. This is vs. the guy I previously had a ZvT on FS (wasn‘t a rematch, I just happened to be looking for a game at the same time he created one, I didn‘t even realize it was the same guy until after the game was over), I‘m in the top right position, he‘s in bottom right. I open overpool into 3 hatch before gas, going for a 3 hatch muta style play. He opens 2 rax, but I notice he is really, really bad when he doesn’t move out to try to pressure me at all (I mean, he kindof tried, but I was able to always coax him back with my initial zerglings)….. And when he finally does, he leaves himself open to a counterattack, so I counterattack and do a bit of damage….. He expands behind 4 or 5 barracks (lol), so I decide to take a 3rd and get my mutas out. Once my mutas are out, they are greeted by 10+ turrets (lol), so they don’t really do anything. So I expand again, deny his 3rd when he tries to take it (I took heavier losses than I killed, but I completely denied his expo all game long, so I gave no fucks), and then rolled him through pure macro, getting 5 bases and 10 hatches constantly pumping out units while his main is completely mined out (I “lost“ pretty much every engagement we had, from an efficiency point of view, but it didn‘t matter when I could produce so much shit). He called me a D- noob, unsurprisingly (because I didn‘t use lurkers or defilers maybe? Or maybe because I decided to not bother trying to do any major muta micro vs. that many turrets? Idk, but he was bad, so I didn‘t need to, I was literally skipping straight to ultras because I could, and I beat him before I even made any). Unfortunately for him, when he lets a Z get 5 bases with decent drone saturation at all of them, and he is on 1 mining base, the Z doesn’t need to do anything more than a-move.
11th game
ZvP on Tau Cross. 3 hatch muta vs. a forge FE. I grab the other natural while my mutas cause some chaos. Zealot archon push kills me before I can get enough hydras out (although just barely, and I mean just barely, he had a total of 2 archons in low shields, and 2 zealots that I couldn‘t completely clean up before he could reinforce his attack). My mutas manage to kill a few templar, and force a bunch of cannons, but it wasn’t enough. I know my build was far from optimal, and I played bad (I was getting pretty tired, I haven‘t played this much BW in a long time), so I lost. I got supply blocked at a very bad time, and was floating a lot of resources I shouldn’t have been floating (not like 5k, more like 1.5k, but it’s still more than I should have been), and I also should have made more sunkens to defend vs. the push (especially since I was floating the resources for it :/), since I knew it was coming. Stupid mistakes. And I decided to take a break after this game.
None were impressive games. Nothing particularly interesting happened in any of them, hence no real BR. ICCUP record went from 4-0 to 8-7
Zvz - close air on python, so it becomes a drone war because we have eyes on each other so early, he does a weird sunken rush, and I defend it, but it hurts my economy more than it should have and I die to a speedling all-in before mutas come out.. I was thrown off my game, and never recovered.
2nd game
ZvZ - Rematch - cross positions on python, he does a speedling all-in vs. me teching to mutas. I die before mutas come out. In both of these games I should have made a sunken in my main, but I was greedy and didn’t, and died outright because of it (I wasn‘t sure if I had the economy to be able to make a sunken and still get my mutas out on time, turns out that both times I would have had enough minerals to place that sunken).
3rd game
ZvP on FS. Korean smurf or something, he was way to fucking good for the D level. I tried 3 hatch spire vs. his sair opening, dealing with his initial poke with zealots well imo. I sacrificed a dozen lings to kill his 3rd while it was building to slow him down, and his initial sair did very little, I did manage to surround it with scourge from 3 directions and kill it after it got a single overlord kill, but I still wasn’t able to get enough hydras out to beat his storms and DT that were on the way. And I know why - I was floating a lot of minerals and gas that I shouldn’t have been, I took my 2nd and then 3rd gases way too early, and didn’t place my 4th and 5th hatcheries soon enough, which fucked me over by having floating resources without any larvae to use them. I’ll have to study the build order a bit more to get the timings figured out, because I feel like I played the very opening of the game pretty solidly.
4th game
ZvZ on Chupung Reyong, he does an early ling attack, I fend it off easily and beat him once my mutas come out, since he tried going hydras immediately following the failed zergling attack (lol?).
5th game
Rematch - ZvZ on Circuit Breakers - Similar openings by both, no damage done with lings at the beginning. He then decides to go drone heavy and makes 2 sunkens to defend, and techs to mutas this time, while I spend larvae on lings, putting my economy behind (I had not scouted him until after the sunkens were up, unfortunately, or I would have made more drones myself). I win several small muta/scourge skirmishes, and kill a few drones here and there, while my economy is mostly untouched by him, evening up the game pretty quickly. Eventually he slips up and tries to squeeze some drones in, and I punish him for it. Honestly, he wasn’t that good (was not able to snipe a single scourge, and his cloning was bad), so it wasn’t a very impressive win. I could have gotten a 3rd game from him, but declined it because I knew how it was going to end, and I wanted a stronger opponent (I‘d rather lose and learn something/play a hard fought match than win easily and learn nothing from it).
6th game
ZvT on FS. I open overpool and go for a 2 hatch muta play. He does a 1 base 3 rax sunken bust-type play. I only make 3 sunkens and die in a horrible fire. He sent out an initial force which 3 sunkens would hold off, but I didn’t scout his reinforcements until it was too late.
7th game
Rematch - ZvT on FS. Same opening, same play by him, except I make 3 sunkens initially, and scouted his reinforcements heading out so I could place 2 more, and I hold off his all-in, while killing his SCVs with mutas. Game over. This guy was probably the strongest player I faced that day though. He had over 300 apm, and he had pretty amazing hotkey usage. His micro and game sense was pretty sick (both times he managed to kill an initial overlord of mine right under my nose), his scouting was pretty intense too, it was crazy tough to kill his SCV. His macro was crazy good too, he never seemed to have more than 100 minerals unless he was building something worth more than that, yet never had anything queued up. I just learned from my mistake in the previous game and beat him because of it. You can’t do the same thing twice in a row without expecting your opponent to adjust to you.
8th game
ZvT on FS. I open overpool 11 hatch, we are cross position. I deny his scout, but I gain zero information myself. I’m sitting outside of his base, teching to spire for 2 hatch muta, when suddenly 2 vultures pop out. I delay them with my opening zerglings long enough to get a sunken up at my natural in time to defend the vulture runby I’m expecting. Suddenly a wraith is in my base. At this point, I have no idea what to expect, so I switch plans and go for hydras, seeing as he still hasn’t expanded yet, so I’m expecting some kind of all-in, likely involving mech (and lower tech units are better vs. mech from my experience, so I‘m planning mass hydra/ling with some lurkers in case he‘s doing some kind of biomech push). I fend off the wraith with minimal losses, and suddenly a dropship drops 8 marines in my natural. I fend it off losing 2 drones, only to have it turn around and hit my main from a weird angle a minute later. I clean it up with minimal losses, but he has expanded in the middle of this. I try to take my 3rd in response, but he pushes out with a big MM and tank force, and clears me out. I have no fucking clue what I did wrong, but I was on the defensive all game, and took relatively little losses prior to his push. And the funny thing is that mutas would have worked better vs. him than what I did, which was a hydra/lurker/ling force. I should have just stuck with it.
9th game
ZvP on FS. I open overpool into 3 hatch before gas. Cross positions. I put down my 3rd hatch in my nat to help with a sim city, which fucks me over in the long run, because I can’t hold my 3rd when I need to take it. I need to scout a bit better/earlier so I know that I can safely take my 3rd with my third hatchery when doing a greedy economic opening like that. I get run over by a standard zealot archon attack.
10th game
ZvT on FS. This is vs. the guy I previously had a ZvT on FS (wasn‘t a rematch, I just happened to be looking for a game at the same time he created one, I didn‘t even realize it was the same guy until after the game was over), I‘m in the top right position, he‘s in bottom right. I open overpool into 3 hatch before gas, going for a 3 hatch muta style play. He opens 2 rax, but I notice he is really, really bad when he doesn’t move out to try to pressure me at all (I mean, he kindof tried, but I was able to always coax him back with my initial zerglings)….. And when he finally does, he leaves himself open to a counterattack, so I counterattack and do a bit of damage….. He expands behind 4 or 5 barracks (lol), so I decide to take a 3rd and get my mutas out. Once my mutas are out, they are greeted by 10+ turrets (lol), so they don’t really do anything. So I expand again, deny his 3rd when he tries to take it (I took heavier losses than I killed, but I completely denied his expo all game long, so I gave no fucks), and then rolled him through pure macro, getting 5 bases and 10 hatches constantly pumping out units while his main is completely mined out (I “lost“ pretty much every engagement we had, from an efficiency point of view, but it didn‘t matter when I could produce so much shit). He called me a D- noob, unsurprisingly (because I didn‘t use lurkers or defilers maybe? Or maybe because I decided to not bother trying to do any major muta micro vs. that many turrets? Idk, but he was bad, so I didn‘t need to, I was literally skipping straight to ultras because I could, and I beat him before I even made any). Unfortunately for him, when he lets a Z get 5 bases with decent drone saturation at all of them, and he is on 1 mining base, the Z doesn’t need to do anything more than a-move.
11th game
ZvP on Tau Cross. 3 hatch muta vs. a forge FE. I grab the other natural while my mutas cause some chaos. Zealot archon push kills me before I can get enough hydras out (although just barely, and I mean just barely, he had a total of 2 archons in low shields, and 2 zealots that I couldn‘t completely clean up before he could reinforce his attack). My mutas manage to kill a few templar, and force a bunch of cannons, but it wasn’t enough. I know my build was far from optimal, and I played bad (I was getting pretty tired, I haven‘t played this much BW in a long time), so I lost. I got supply blocked at a very bad time, and was floating a lot of resources I shouldn’t have been floating (not like 5k, more like 1.5k, but it’s still more than I should have been), and I also should have made more sunkens to defend vs. the push (especially since I was floating the resources for it :/), since I knew it was coming. Stupid mistakes. And I decided to take a break after this game.
None were impressive games. Nothing particularly interesting happened in any of them, hence no real BR. ICCUP record went from 4-0 to 8-7
This game, however, occurred after I had come back from a bar last night. I thought I had just gone to bed after getting home, but apparently I had a new replay. I decided to watch it, for the hell of it, because I noticed that it was nearly a 15 minute game vs. a C- player who is obviously better than C- (C high, current record is 29-11, and has many seasons with records like that).
The map is Python (I cannot host, since I do not have administrator access to my router in order to forward the ports properly, so I’m stuck playing what others are hosting). I spawn at 9 as Z, while my opponent spawns at 12 as P. Even while drunk, I still move my larvae to the left side of the hatchery at the beginning. Like a boss.
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img560/3472/0023w.png)
He tries to block my hatchery, and fails really quickly.
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img339/623/0211cu.png)
My drunkenness becomes apparent. I’m not sure why I said that..... I haven't scouted anything unusual yet, no cheese apparent, etc.....
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img10/4052/0231z.png)
And, of course, his plan is DT’s behind Corsairs.
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img837/7893/0423y.png)
And I scout it in time to ensure I get the appropriate defenses in place.
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img21/4091/0446.png)
He did manage to kill 3 overlords, but 2 of which I was using to scout with. Overall, I feel like it was not a terrible play by me to lose 3 to a 1 gate stargate opening. Except for one thing - I seem to have very, very low drone saturation compared to what I should have. The reason? I seem to be producing drones way slower than I should be…..
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img560/2599/0534.png)
Somewhere at the beginning of the game, I must have decided that getting Zergling Speed was a good idea. Turns out that it was, because he let me get 3 zerglings into his base. They scouted him quite well, and killed 2 probes, as well as slowed mining for 10 seconds or so.
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img163/122/0616g.png)
Did that DT do any damage? Nope (those kills were actually 5 of the Zerglings from earlier).
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img694/8964/0907e.png)
And I killed that pesky Corsair.
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img210/3210/0910.png)
And then got a 2nd DT of his (that got the last Zergling of mine).
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img441/8528/0927.png)
PSYCH - I didn’t expand there.
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img163/7808/1003m.png)
Now the funny part. I had my evo chamber down before he had his forge. And I put a 2nd one down. I had my carapace upgrade finished before he had +1 weapons, and should have had +2 going. But here’s what happened…..
He’s just starting +2
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img546/9542/1004r.png)
I’m just finishing +1 ranged, already having +1 carapace finished.
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img526/3671/1005q.png)
Not only am I late on getting my 2nd upgrade from that evo chamber, but I get melee attack upgrade instead of carapace?
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img839/7374/1007y.png)
I have no idea what's been going on. I've seemed to stop his scouting at every turn somehow. I've killed a shitload of scouting units of his, even though I've had next to no real map presence. And he still has no idea I have the mineral only expansion.
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img689/6651/1152a.png)
Unfortunately, remember how I said that I had low drone saturation early on? And that I wasn’t making drones as fast as I should have? Well, that turns out to bite me in the ass when he rolls out with a 40+ food advantage….. My storm dodging was decent, and my micro in some of the small engagements we had was decent as well, but there was no way in hell I was going to win that fight. I came decently close, but it wasn’t going to happen…..
![[image loading]](http://imageshack.us/a/img833/8260/1233y.png)
I GG'd and left when it was clear my 3rd was dead. I’m now 8-8 on ICCUP. I’m bad.
. Also ran in to Ret that night, "teaching" Artosis how to play terran. So of course, I promptly DT drop and almost take the win lol. Good times!
