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I, a...learning zerg player, have run into a bit of a situation. I feel quite confident in the ZvT matchup, and relatively competent in the ZvP matchup as well, however, I am horrible at, and despise with every fiber of my being, the ZvZ matchup. I know a lot of people say it is a lot of fun, but the entire game, to me, seems like a hectic game of rock paper scissors in which my opponent knows what I am going to pick. I know it isn't and some of you might find that insulting, but that is just how it feels to me.
Anyways, from the HSL3 thread, I noticed that there are a number of players that choose to play different races depending on their matchups. Since I feel the most comfortable playing the ZvT matchup, I thought I might also be comfortable playing TvZ, or at least more-so than ZvZ (also, I am very interested in learning a second race, even if it is for only one matchup). Just curious about people who play multiple races, what are the pluses and minuses to this, and what were/are your reasons for choosing the races and matchups you did?
 
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ZvT/TvZ'ing may be a good choice for you, actually. You'll be learning both sides of the matchup, which is a plus in understanding it. I find nothing wrong with being a matchup player, so go for it.
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It's not a bad idea, except when it comes to random players.
I think it's more fun to be able to play any race.
I use to do TvZ, TvP, PvT.
Then I decided I liked P better so I switched to TvZ, PvP, PvT.
Then Bisu came along and all zergs started rushing defiler vT so I only play P now.
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I figure against random players I will have to play Z and just do my best if ZvZ should rear its ugly head. My zerg just has too much time and experience on my T for me to make it my race vs random. My biggest worry now, since I decided I am going to go through with it, at least for a while, is hotkeys. I am VERY set in my ways as far as hotkeys go, and also have no basis for hotkeying with terran. I would assume use 1-4 for units and 5-6 for CC's and 0 for scan, but that only leaves 7-9 for unit production buildings. Idk, any T players feel like sharing their hotkeys?
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My terran hotkeys against zerg are as follows:
1-3 units
4-8 raxes
9-0 cc/scan
Now, you obviously won't be able to go through an entire game using only 1-3 for units, so what I do is that when I get enough units (say, 2 marine groups, 1 medic/vessel group and a tank group) I will just overwrite the rax I had on 4 and rebind it to something else (7 for example, if i had 3 raxes). I will also often hotkey a scanner to 8 if I happen to get 3 ccs, as long as I have 1 rax keyed.
I very rarely hotkey factories and starports, except for early game, because the units from these buildings build much slower than marines and medics and therefore require a lot less attention. Hotkey as many raxes as you can get away with early game and just makes sure that you shuffle through them every 10-20 seconds or so.
I'm a random player so my hotkeys for all 3 races are pretty much identical.
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Im a zergie and toss is the easiest for me to use as an off race. I can't T for my life. Ill sumtimes pvz in place of zvz if I don't think my opponents a gosu.
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I think it's a great idea to play multiple races. But if you're interested in playing clan wars and tournaments, you need to have zvz at a decent level too. This is because people might random, not to mention latepick. You need to be able to handle this and not be crippled by race picking if you want to be competitive.
I myself play zerg as main race but I started doing some tvz and I really like the other terran matchups as well. The problem is that it's so tedious playing many games in a row as terran since there is often a quite long buildup phase with little action. So it's perfect to switch it up.
I also think you become a better starcraft player by being more alround, even for non related matchups. Tvz will obviously improve your zvt but I also think that learning the other terran matchups will improve your zerg game in the long run.
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I don't think it's a bad idea to play zvt/tvz at all. I do it myself and i find myself mostly winning TvZ's more than i win ZvZ's. It also seems to have helped make my ZvT better. Offracing P is probably easier, but TvZ is just so much fun 
Edit: I'm around D rank ICC btw.
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Well, I'm playing TvZ TvP PvT.
I've been switching on and off from TvT and PvT. What usually happends is that I get bored of TvT after playing it for a while, and I always end up losing vs equally good terrans in every TvT I play. (By equally I mean that our tvz and tvp is exactly at the same level)
I chose the PvT matchup instead because it fits my style of playing a lot more than TvT. The TvT matchup requires strategical positioning, patience, routine etc and that's not me as a player at all.
I'm pretty macro-oriented, and my game-mechanics is pretty good so usually, if anything, it's my macromanagement that wins the games.
In TvT those skills of mine lose value, as a superior macro player can lose horribly to a superb strategical player in TvT. Holding keypoints of the map while using drops and stuff pretty much rapes vs a terran trying to macro only in a TvT.
In PvT on the other hand, I'm able to make full use of what i'm good at. As my game-mechanics and macro is pretty solid, it gives me an oppertunity to rely solely on that, as it's basically 1a2a3a4a vs terran in a pvt when attacking.
What I do suffer from is the lack of timing, and sometimes I'm pretty unsure of how to attack and stuff like that. This is mostly because i've been playing terran for so long, that I don't really have a clue how the timings work out in PvT as Protoss.
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I used to play TvZ, TvP, and PvT. TvT was my best matchup, but I always just found it horribly boring lol.
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10319 Posts
I like to do PvT, PvZ, TvP. Works out some of the time, and some of the time I feel like PvP would be better. Up to you obviously, and how well you can control switching hotkeys and stuff.
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tvz i use
1-whatever for marines + bats (usually like 3 or 4)
5 for medics
6 tank
7 vessel
0,9 scan
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I do TvP TvZ PvT cause I absolutely detest TvT. My PvT helps my TvP and vice versa. I wouldn't recommend trying TvZ when you've only been playing zerg cause the level of mechanics you need to play TvZ decently requires lots of experience with terran.
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I actually think ZvZ might be the matchup with the most strategy. Each decision matters so much, each larvae, each drone, each zergling and where you send it...
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On January 29 2008 13:14 Pressure wrote:
tvz i use
1-whatever for marines + bats (usually like 3 or 4)
5 for medics
6 tank
7 vessel
0,9 scan
Well then you, my friend, seem to be somewhat of a micro oriented player. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, and I am sure you have found your own way around not having your racks hotkeyed, but I have found for me that, despite my best efforts, if a Hatchery is not hotkeyed, it doesn't make units during battles. I can only spread my 60-80 ( ) apm so far.
On January 29 2008 13:39 skyglow1 wrote:
I do TvP TvZ PvT cause I absolutely detest TvT. My PvT helps my TvP and vice versa. I wouldn't recommend trying TvZ when you've only been playing zerg cause the level of mechanics you need to play TvZ decently requires lots of experience with terran.
Are you suggesting that TvZ is a special case, or that branching out to another race is just a bad idea. Although I have been playing for several years, my introduction to the pro-scene and therefore my need to become a decent player is relatively recent, so I think I am in a good position to learn a second race, as I am essentially little more than a clean slate. Plus, as some have alluded to, I feel like getting a grasp of TvZ will unlock the secrets of ZvT, and vice versa, which will hopefully be a very enjoyable experience.
On January 29 2008 13:53 FieryBalrog wrote:
I actually think ZvZ might be the matchup with the most strategy. Each decision matters so much, each larvae, each drone, each zergling and where you send it...
I actually agree with you. I have found that minute decisions, in this matchup more than any others, carry dire consequences. Unfortunately, it feels like I always essentially start out at a disadvantage by making one of these decisions incorrectly, and am therefore unable to play a satisfying game of ZvZ. So, instead of persevering and growing as a starcraft player, I am jumping ship, yet still growing as an sc player. 
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Show nested quote +On January 29 2008 13:39 skyglow1 wrote:
I do TvP TvZ PvT cause I absolutely detest TvT. My PvT helps my TvP and vice versa. I wouldn't recommend trying TvZ when you've only been playing zerg cause the level of mechanics you need to play TvZ decently requires lots of experience with terran. Are you suggesting that TvZ is a special case, or that branching out to another race is just a bad idea. Although I have been playing for several years, my introduction to the pro-scene and therefore my need to become a decent player is relatively recent, so I think I am in a good position to learn a second race, as I am essentially little more than a clean slate. Plus, as some have alluded to, I feel like getting a grasp of TvZ will unlock the secrets of ZvT, and vice versa, which will hopefully be a very enjoyable experience.
TvZ is imo a special case. In terms of the strategy and everything it is not a difficult matchup to grasp at all because there's a very standard way of playing that works well in most games, and you can just keep improving on that. The problem lies in learning a whole new set of mechanics that comes with terran (as opposed to a switch from toss to terran mechancis which is relatively easy) and being proefficient enough in your mechanics that you can actually win often enough. Not only that, TvZ is known for it's insane mechanical demand on the player. It's only cause terran players get to play with their race so much that they eventually get to a high enough level of mechanics that it's no longer limiting their gameplay that much. Of course TvZ would help your ZvT, but I dunno if you should play it as a full-time matchup. Maybe just like a handful of games now and then but not as an actual matchup. Something like PvZ and ZvP if like the matchups I think would be more appropriate.
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EPT
