• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 07:37
CEST 13:37
KST 20:37
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play1Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12TL.net Map Contest #22 - Voting & Ladder Map Selection7Code S Season 2 (2026) - RO8 Preview8
Community News
[TLMC] Summer 2026 Ladder Map Rotation05.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start)83ZeroSpace at Steam NextFest - Last free demo38Weekly Cups (June 8-14): Clem and Solar double, PTR tested0RSL: S6 Finals played at BlizzCon 202611
StarCraft 2
General
Is the larve respawn broken? The Death of Cheese: From a Professional Cheeser 5.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start) Old Replays From 1.4.6 The future of the SC game model
Tourneys
Maestros of The Game 2 announcement and schedule ! Douyu Cup 2026: $20,000 Legends Event (June 26-28) RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event INu's Battles#17 <BO.9> Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
New Map Maker - Looking for Advice - Love or Hate Work In Progress Melee Maps [D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 532 Nuclear Family Mutation # 531 Experimental Artillery Mutation # 530 One For All
Brood War
General
ASL 22 Proposed Map Pool ProGamer Paychecks Story Best thing happen to StarCraft since Remastered? Data needed BW General Discussion
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues [ASL21] Grand Finals The Casual Games of the Week Thread [BSL22] GosuLeague Casts - Tue & Thu 22:00 CEST
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Creating a full chart of Zerg builds Relatively freeroll strategies Why doesn't anyone use restoration?
Other Games
General Games
ZeroSpace at Steam NextFest - Last free demo Path of Exile Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Beyond All Reason
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread The Games Industry And ATVI Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine
Fan Clubs
The HerO Fan Club! The herO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Series you have seen recently... [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books [TV/BOOK] *SPOILERS* Game of Thrones Discussion
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion McBoner: A hockey love story TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 Cricket [SPORT]
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Listen To The Coaches!
TrAiDoS
An Exploration of th…
waywardstrategy
I'm an arrogant trash talke…
FlaShFTW
Gauntlet SC2: A Retrospectiv…
Ctone23
ramps on octagon
StaticNine
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 19990 users

Mechanics Video Series

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
Post a Reply
1 2 3 Next All
Birdie
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
New Zealand4438 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-03-13 11:17:22
February 06 2014 11:34 GMT
#1
[image loading]

Introducing...Birdie's Mechanics Video Series!


The foreign community has tended to ignore or downplay the importance of anything related to APM, namely, mechanics. However, this is quite detrimental to the rapid improvement of new players, as mechanics are extremely important for players to be able to achieve what they want in the most efficient and quick way possible. If you can do what you want quicker and more precisely than your opponent, it will give you a significant advantage over him, and help you win.

To help players both new and old improve their mechanics, I have created a video series on mechanics. Each video will discuss one mechanical aspect that is useful in playing StarCraft, and then tell you a way of practicing that mechanic in order to improve in it.

Here are the videos!

+ Show Spoiler [The First Video: Clicking!] +



+ Show Spoiler [The Second Video: Screen Hotkeys!] +



+ Show Spoiler [The Third Video: All the Other Hotkeys!] +



+ Show Spoiler [The Fourth Video: Unit and Building Sh…] +

Red classic | A butterfly dreamed he was Zhuangzi | 4.5k, heading to 5k as support!
fencer
Profile Joined October 2011
122 Posts
February 06 2014 17:37 GMT
#2
Cool video!

About spamming in the beginning: isn't it also true that you can obtain marginal benefit by "juggling" the first workers around so that they travel a bit shorter? It has always puzzled me how many good players spam their workers like crazy, yet can't be bothered to actually put those actions to use.
Disc Golf is Awesome! Thought I'd throw that out there =)
Falling
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Canada11564 Posts
February 06 2014 19:15 GMT
#3
In the situation with the hydras that you presented, would the fast thing to do would be to double click one? Or is this more for when you have more than a hotkey group and the remnant will jam the selected together?

I don't know about juggling, but I try and send workers to open patches when I'm spamming at the beginning.
ModeratorDavid Duke, Richard Spencer, Nick Fuentes, Daily Stormer... "Some very fine people on both sides"
Warlord_Master
Profile Joined May 2010
51 Posts
February 06 2014 19:31 GMT
#4
On February 07 2014 04:15 Falling wrote:
In the situation with the hydras that you presented, would the fast thing to do would be to double click one? Or is this more for when you have more than a hotkey group and the remnant will jam the selected together?

I don't know about juggling, but I try and send workers to open patches when I'm spamming at the beginning.


come on man double clicking is like 2006, ctrl click is where its at, i cant double click already moving zergling for shit so i got used to ctrl click for ease
Birdie
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
New Zealand4438 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-02-06 20:54:55
February 06 2014 20:54 GMT
#5
On February 07 2014 02:37 fencer wrote:
Cool video!

About spamming in the beginning: isn't it also true that you can obtain marginal benefit by "juggling" the first workers around so that they travel a bit shorter? It has always puzzled me how many good players spam their workers like crazy, yet can't be bothered to actually put those actions to use.

Yeah you can, and I do that sometimes. I'll cover it in a later video but I'm not that great at it so I'll have to practice it some more I'm starting with the more basic stuff though.

On February 07 2014 04:15 Falling wrote:
In the situation with the hydras that you presented, would the fast thing to do would be to double click one? Or is this more for when you have more than a hotkey group and the remnant will jam the selected together?

I don't know about juggling, but I try and send workers to open patches when I'm spamming at the beginning.

Ctrl-Click would be the true fastest method, but it was more to demonstrate if you wanted to select specific hydralisks. If there had been 30 hydras on the screen and you only wanted that 6, Ctrl-Click wouldn't work.

Doubleclick's too slow.
Red classic | A butterfly dreamed he was Zhuangzi | 4.5k, heading to 5k as support!
Falling
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Canada11564 Posts
February 06 2014 21:15 GMT
#6
I did not know about control click except when selecting wire-frame within control groups, so you see I have learned something already. Even if I was stuck in 2006
ModeratorDavid Duke, Richard Spencer, Nick Fuentes, Daily Stormer... "Some very fine people on both sides"
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland27046 Posts
February 06 2014 22:36 GMT
#7
This is pretty cool for us mechanics nerds, shall have a re-watch later as I'm kind of zoning out here.
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
Birdie
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
New Zealand4438 Posts
February 06 2014 23:16 GMT
#8
Updated with the second video, on screen hotkeys!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BByzkLzr6E0
Red classic | A butterfly dreamed he was Zhuangzi | 4.5k, heading to 5k as support!
XenOsky
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Chile2356 Posts
February 06 2014 23:56 GMT
#9
this is really helpful for new players... i wish we had a series like this back in 2003 T_T
ἡ τῆς Νεμέσεως τάξις
Reuental
Profile Joined July 2009
United States457 Posts
February 07 2014 02:12 GMT
#10
Oh wow you can ctrl click instead of doubleclicking, my mind is blown. This is just like when I was a newbie and found out you can shift select.
I'm a Crab made of men.
hp.Shell
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States2527 Posts
February 07 2014 08:16 GMT
#11
In addition to ctrl+click, you can also alt+click a unit to select that unit's most recently selected group. For example, if that unit was most recently selected as part of ctrl group 1, alt+clicking that unit will select ctrl group 1. However, if for example you just select a few units randomly, EVEN IF THEY ARE PART OF A CTRL GROUP, and then select something else that doesn't include one of those units, the next time you alt+click one of those units you just randomly selected together, it will reselect your "random" selection group.

Unless, that is, you press 1 again, which re-selects the units in the ctrl group 1. This action will reset that alt-group for the units in ctrl group 1. For the units that are not in ctrl group 1, but still are part of the random alt-group, alt+clicking it will reselect the alt+group.

Hard to explain, but I don't feel like making a video. Load up some probes and just mess around with it. You'll see what I mean.
Please PM me with any songs you like that you think I haven't heard before!
jello_biafra
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
United Kingdom6642 Posts
February 07 2014 13:17 GMT
#12
On February 07 2014 17:16 hp.Shell wrote:
In addition to ctrl+click, you can also alt+click a unit to select that unit's most recently selected group. For example, if that unit was most recently selected as part of ctrl group 1, alt+clicking that unit will select ctrl group 1. However, if for example you just select a few units randomly, EVEN IF THEY ARE PART OF A CTRL GROUP, and then select something else that doesn't include one of those units, the next time you alt+click one of those units you just randomly selected together, it will reselect your "random" selection group.

Unless, that is, you press 1 again, which re-selects the units in the ctrl group 1. This action will reset that alt-group for the units in ctrl group 1. For the units that are not in ctrl group 1, but still are part of the random alt-group, alt+clicking it will reselect the alt+group.

Hard to explain, but I don't feel like making a video. Load up some probes and just mess around with it. You'll see what I mean.

I did not know that...that's madness.

IIRC you can also select a unit and press alt+# to add a unit to control group #.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions | aka Probert[PaiN] @ iccup / godlikeparagon @ twitch | my BW stream: http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/jello_biafra
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland27046 Posts
February 07 2014 23:06 GMT
#13
Does the alt + click thing work in Sc2 because if so that is actually something of which IO was previously unaware!
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
ZeroChrome
Profile Joined September 2010
Canada1001 Posts
February 08 2014 02:17 GMT
#14
On February 07 2014 22:17 jello_biafra wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 07 2014 17:16 hp.Shell wrote:
In addition to ctrl+click, you can also alt+click a unit to select that unit's most recently selected group. For example, if that unit was most recently selected as part of ctrl group 1, alt+clicking that unit will select ctrl group 1. However, if for example you just select a few units randomly, EVEN IF THEY ARE PART OF A CTRL GROUP, and then select something else that doesn't include one of those units, the next time you alt+click one of those units you just randomly selected together, it will reselect your "random" selection group.

Unless, that is, you press 1 again, which re-selects the units in the ctrl group 1. This action will reset that alt-group for the units in ctrl group 1. For the units that are not in ctrl group 1, but still are part of the random alt-group, alt+clicking it will reselect the alt+group.

Hard to explain, but I don't feel like making a video. Load up some probes and just mess around with it. You'll see what I mean.

I did not know that...that's madness.

IIRC you can also select a unit and press alt+# to add a unit to control group #.


Mind=blown. Shift+# adds the selected unit(s) to that group and alt+# selects and centers your screen on that group. I've played thousands of BW games and never knew this before o_0
Forward
DemonDayz
Profile Joined June 2012
18 Posts
February 08 2014 12:57 GMT
#15
The more of these kind of videos the better ! :D
Winning is Everything
vOdToasT
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Sweden2870 Posts
February 08 2014 16:20 GMT
#16
I've started using CTRL + C a lot

It centers your view on the currently selected unit or structure

It's very useful.
If it's stupid but it works, then it's not stupid* (*Or: You are stupid for losing to it, and gotta git gud)
BonitiilloO
Profile Joined June 2013
Dominican Republic627 Posts
February 13 2014 00:58 GMT
#17
i have a question tho... i usually see stream on sniperslot and players like mong, hiya, ample, eCaruS,
they can have a lot of units in the rally point and they can CTRL #1 #2 #3 #4 without getting the same units on the same control? how do i can do that?
How may help u?
Birdie
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
New Zealand4438 Posts
February 13 2014 03:59 GMT
#18
On February 13 2014 09:58 SC2BF3Love wrote:
i have a question tho... i usually see stream on sniperslot and players like mong, hiya, ample, eCaruS,
they can have a lot of units in the rally point and they can CTRL #1 #2 #3 #4 without getting the same units on the same control? how do i can do that?

Assuming I understand your question, it's all manually selecting different units. You can do the same thing by just making sure you select the correct units with each box select (or manually shift select several units).

Last exam was today so I'll try get another episode done tonight or tomorrow.
Red classic | A butterfly dreamed he was Zhuangzi | 4.5k, heading to 5k as support!
Golgotha
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Korea (South)8418 Posts
February 13 2014 11:15 GMT
#19
love it! thanks birdie!
Birdie
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
New Zealand4438 Posts
February 13 2014 11:21 GMT
#20
Just added the third video, covering ordinary hotkeys. Much of it may not be new to seasoned players but there's a few things which some relatively "experienced" players don't even know, so it's worth a look. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiVQBPOw5is
Red classic | A butterfly dreamed he was Zhuangzi | 4.5k, heading to 5k as support!
1 2 3 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
WardiTV Weekly
11:00
WardiTV Mondays #93
IntoTheiNu 805
WardiTV518
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Lowko435
ProTech139
Ryung 104
Rex 89
SHIN 20
MaxPax 1
TKL 0
StarCraft: Brood War
Calm 9451
Leta 1142
Sea 1085
Jaedong 572
BeSt 524
Mini 392
Mong 278
EffOrt 260
Soma 230
Zeus 228
[ Show more ]
Hyuk 195
Rush 191
Soulkey 171
Light 134
ggaemo 132
Hyun 114
Aegong 102
Snow 94
Pusan 73
Dewaltoss 69
hero 47
ToSsGirL 37
[sc1f]eonzerg 31
yabsab 24
Icarus 21
scan(afreeca) 19
sorry 19
IntoTheRainbow 14
Hm[arnc] 13
Sacsri 13
Noble 13
HiyA 13
Bale 9
GoRush 1
Dota 2
Gorgc4284
singsing2959
Dendi679
XcaliburYe301
Fuzer 11
League of Legends
JimRising 369
Counter-Strike
olofmeister2051
markeloff153
kRYSTAL_54
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King88
Other Games
Pyrionflax255
crisheroes239
BEARDiaguz17
Organizations
Dota 2
PGL Dota 2 - Main Stream432
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 19
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 13 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• iopq 6
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• WagamamaTV366
League of Legends
• Jankos2670
Upcoming Events
RSL Revival
22h 23m
RSL Revival
1d 5h
Bombastic Starleague
1d 8h
Kung Fu Cup
1d 23h
OSC
2 days
CrankTV Team League
2 days
Bombastic Starleague
3 days
Replay Cast
3 days
The PondCast
3 days
HomeStory Cup
3 days
[ Show More ]
Replay Cast
4 days
HomeStory Cup
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
HomeStory Cup
5 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

BSL 22 Non-Korean Championship
Douyu Cup 2026
Murky Cup 2026

Ongoing

IPSL Spring 2026
Acropolis #4
CSCL: Masked Kings S4
YSL S3
CSL Season 21: Qualifier 2
SCTL 2026 Spring
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
IEM Rio 2026

Upcoming

CSL 2026 Summer (S21)
ASL Season 22:Wild Card Qualifier
CSLAN 4
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Revival: Season 6
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
HSC XXIX
BCC 2026
Light Tournament 2026
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale
Eternal Conflict S2 E1
Heroes Pulsing #3
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.