[D] Learning through cheese - Page 5

On August 24 2011 13:09 kofman wrote:
I agree with the post, cheesing is a completely neccesary part of the game, if you don't do it than you are already at a huge disadvantage. If people know you absolutely never cheese (e.g.idra), then people are going to take advantage of that by doing risky builds to gain an economic advantage. However, if players know that you occasionally cheese, then that means that they have to play it safer and do suboptimal builds, because they don't want to die to a cheese when they are being to risky. Mixing in a cheese maybe 10% of the time keeps your opponenets on their toes and makes sure that you aren't taken advantage of.

I think people are a bit confused about the definitions of macro and skill. Macro is not "skill", nor is cheese "skill". Macro is simply macro, and cheese is simply cheese. By being good at macroing, you don't have "skill", you have good macro. By having a lot of cheeses and executing them well, you don't have "skill", you have good cheese. A player who sucks at cheesing but is pro at macroing is not any more skilled than a player who is pro at cheesing but sucks at macroing. THey are simply good at different parts of the game, and I think its unfair to say that one part of the game is more important than another part of the game.

And btw, yes cheesing takes skill. Knowing what maps favor what cheese, where to proxy your buildings, and how to make it look like a different builds all take skill. Not to mention microing your units. Cheesing takes more skill than massing drones, thats for sure.

For all the people against this, if u start out practicing macro, you will never learn the early game.

This is why I recommend that gold/plat players who have a solid grasp of 1 macro build learn to cheese. Learn every major cheese build for all three races, and practice them, a lot.

This will do 3 things:
1. You will get very good at executing tight builds and learn how timing windows work.
2. You will practice intense micro in a wide variety of situations with all kinds of units.
3. You will learn how good players defend against cheese, and will stop fearing it.

On August 24 2011 14:10 DivinitySC2 wrote:
I made a thread attacking the macro game and talking about the benefits of cheesing/early game with simple logic

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=255796

Full support my friend.

For all the people against this, if u start out practicing macro, you will never learn the early game.

The early game is before the late game.

Therefore the player with the clear stronger early game will win no matter what.

The "macro" mindset keeps the foreign sc2 scene behind...

On August 24 2011 14:10 DivinitySC2 wrote:
I made a thread attacking the macro game and talking about the benefits of cheesing/early game with simple logic

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=255796

Full support my friend.

For all the people against this, if u start out practicing macro, you will never learn the early game.

The early game is before the late game.

Therefore the player with the clear stronger early game will win no matter what.

The "macro" mindset keeps the foreign sc2 scene behind...

On August 24 2011 05:50 Numy wrote:
Sensationalist titles aren't really something we like in strategy section. Also I don't really understand the point of this. People say not to rely on cheese on ladder to improve and you say exactly that but go on some round about tangent which is really odd. Why would you fear cheese less if you cheese yourself? Why would it heighten your game sense or apm more than doing non-cheese? Bold statements without backing are meaningless

On August 24 2011 14:10 DivinitySC2 wrote:
I made a thread attacking the macro game and talking about the benefits of cheesing/early game with simple logic

http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=255796

Full support my friend.

For all the people against this, if u start out practicing macro, you will never learn the early game.

The early game is before the late game.

Therefore the player with the clear stronger early game will win no matter what.

The "macro" mindset keeps the foreign sc2 scene behind...

On August 24 2011 08:29 worldsnap wrote:


By definition these people don't exist. If they had a solid grasp of one macro build they would be at the very least in diamond.

On August 24 2011 16:22 Arisen wrote:


I'd like to know how you don't learn the early game playing a macro style; If you don't know what can happen in the early game you can die really easily.

If anything, you're learning LESS about the early game playing an all in style becuase you only know the early game from your skewed perspective of gearing up for an all in where your opponent will be using an entirely different style. Since you're always the aggressor in all in styles, you never learn how to read other players all in builds, what different things mean in terms of setting up for the midgame. By playing all in you're only learning a miniscule subset of what this game is, which is why most players will (correctly) advise newer players to steer away from all ins until they have a solid grasp of the game (mid mastersish)

On August 24 2011 16:24 D_K_night wrote:


Arrogant posts like this kill the interest of newer players. Perfect example of elitist attitude where "only masters and above matter", riiiight.

Let me guess, you're one of those people who advocate sitting in your base, macroing to 200/200 and A-move, no scouting needed...because after all, nobody below diamond plays games worth a damn right?

On August 24 2011 14:28 lorkac wrote:
Macro plays are designed specifically to not die to cheese assuming good/perfect control. For example, 15 hatch is the best counter to 11rax/11rax assuming perfect control.

I am not recommending cheese as a way to ladder or improve in the long term. However, once you’ve got a solid grasp of cheese and its often simple but subtle counters-- building placement, worker micro, timing, scouting cues-- you can focus on perfecting your macro with renewed confidence.

On August 24 2011 16:28 D_K_night wrote:


Let's refer back to the distribution chart of players once again:

Bronze/Silver/Gold/Plat/Diamond/Masters/GM
20/20/20/20/18/1.8/0.2

So you're saying that only the top 1.8% and above of players in any region, have a solid grasp of the game? I guess everyone else is SOL then.

On August 24 2011 17:37 Arisen wrote:


Pretty much. I know a lot of people don't want to hear it, but if you have a solid grasp of the game, you will make it to masters, if you don't, you wont. Once you're there things like unit control, great timings, etc are what defines how good you are (low high mid or GM)

On August 24 2011 05:45 quillian wrote:

This is why I recommend that gold/plat players who have a solid grasp of 1 macro build learn to cheese. Learn every major cheese build for all three races, and practice them, a lot.

On August 24 2011 17:45 DarQraven wrote:


Masters and upwards is the top 1.8% as mentioned earlier. If you compare that to chess rankings, you're saying that no one except international chess grandmasters has a solid grasp of the game.
I believe you might be setting your standards too high.
(Mind that this data does not even include the people that aren't registered players or haven't played tournaments of some kind.)

"You're not Kasparov? Shame man, you don't know shit."

On August 24 2011 07:09 Puph wrote:


REALLY? You are going to dismiss a perfectly sensible article because of the title and conclude it is invalid due to the suspected connection with mid-level players? What a terribly narrow mind to ignore the benifits of what of the OP's claims.

It is true,you cannot 1A your way to victory. Now, what if all you know is 1A or a disgruntled version of it? Micro is necessary, and the best way to practice it than micro-intensive, quick builds? (IE: Cheese).

That doesn't mean cheese all day, erry day. This seems to have blown right past you. Once you feel comfortable with cheese, getting the micro on is a piece of cake because you pure know what can stop you, and fast(in every sense possible).

To deny cheese is to deny a resourceful way of learning. You like resources, don't you?

On August 24 2011 17:14 DarQraven wrote:


> Perfect control
> Bronze/Silver/Gold

There's the problem.

Let me quote a part from the OP that I feel many of its opponents are willfully ignoring in order to get on a high horse and parrot Day9:



No one here is denying the importance of macro skills and if that is your sole argument, you need to read better. What the OP is saying is that "ignoring your losses to cheese" is not a good way to learn OR to macro.

Quite simply, by far the best way to learn to understand a cheese and how to defeat it by using it yourself. It takes 2 minutes to find a build order and write it down, then 20 minutes maybe practicing it in yabot or vs AI, then you can do some custom games with it if you like and experience first hand what the possible counters are and what your opponent could do that makes him lose. You now have both a list of things to do when you face that cheese, and a list of things not to do.

After this, your understanding of the cheese is far greater than if you'd just read the premade response off the strategy forums here or watched a replay of someone defeating it. You now have a feel for why the counter defeats it, not just that it does.

With your new cheese-proofedness, you can now go and macro your little heart out and be as pro as you like. Difference being you won't be losing 25% of your games right off the bat.

You guys are acting like lower league players are borderline mentally retarded and are going to take two months just to learn the BO for cannon rush. In non-distorted reality, though, you can follow the OP's advice extensively in no more than two, maybe three days, even as a bronzer, after which your ability to actually get into the midgame improves dramatically.

On August 24 2011 17:59 Tyrant0 wrote:


That's not even what the OP is saying at all. He's not even suggesting to cheese a few games to get better at fighting it, rather, cheese a lot to practice; His point is literally, cheesing in the early game is a better way to increase your APM, refine your build orders, and learn timings, and of course get better at defending it.

Even if he was, playing a few games and cheesing still brings you right back to the beginning. You still need to defend it whilst executing a standard, macro oriented build. You don't need to understand it at all- only how your specific build holds it, and the only way to accomplish that is solid scouting, and practice. Everyone loses to cheese- It's one of the three inevitabilities of life: Death, taxes, and cheese.

On August 24 2011 17:45 DarQraven wrote:
Masters and upwards is the top 1.8% as mentioned earlier. If you compare that to chess rankings, you're saying that no one except international chess grandmasters has a solid grasp of the game.
I believe you might be setting your standards too high.
(Mind that this data does not even include the people that aren't registered players or haven't played tournaments of some kind.)

"You're not Kasparov? Shame man, you don't know shit."

On August 24 2011 18:19 DarQraven wrote:


I'll quote from the OP.

> Your goal is not to progress using cheese, but to learn to defeat it so you can come back to your macro game with a deeper understanding.
> I am not recommending cheese as a way to ladder or improve in the long term.
> (...) you can focus on perfecting your macro with renewed confidence.