PiG Daily Articles

Welcome to the PiG Daily strategy article! The PiG Daily is a show by Jared "PiG" Krensel that focuses on StarCraft 2 strategy and becoming a better player. We've joined forces to create an article series that summarizes his dailies into short, digestible articles that provide insight on builds, tactics and game sense. By combining with Spawning Tool, this series will bring you the most comprehensive learning experience for build orders and strategies.

How to use Spawning Tool

We highly recommend using Spawning Tool in order to follow the basics of these builds. The PiG Daily and our strategy articles will serve as supplementary guides to understand the subtleties behind each decision.

I started doing this show as my “Beginner Terran Opening” guide - but realised it’s a little advanced for brand new players.

If you want to challenge yourself a bit more as a beginner this is a great build for you. This also works for any gold+ players that wants a great opening you can use in every matchup with just a few small adjustments here and there. It can work right through to GM in all 3 matchups. It requires you to be a little tighter with your order to get the most out of the opening. This is a big part of Terran play as the openings can be super advanced, and good build execution is vital to strong Terran play. This style also really rewards good bio medivac control and pushes you to get the most out of your early pressure.

Link to the Spawning Tool Build

2-1-1 Terran Opening for All Matchups

Building Priorities

1st Barracks

• Reaper
  
• Reactor
  
• Non-stop marine production

2nd Barracks

• Tech lab
  
• Stim then Combat Shields
  
• Marines!

Factory

• Builds add-ons
  
• Early hellion or cyclone if you spot an attack
  
• Reactor, then swap out

Starport

• Swaps onto the reactor
  
• Medivacs!

With a little practice, you should be able to move out with 16 marines, 2 medivacs, and stim almost finished by 5:00. This is enough to pressure your opponent, so get out there and use your units. It takes a lot of attention and focus to use your drops effectively, but it's good training to always be active with your units.

From here, you can decide how you want to approach the mid-game. If you do lethal damage with your drop, you can go straight into 5 barracks production and finish the game. If you feel like you're ahead and want to get more ahead, get that third base and engineering bay for upgrades. If you see that you need splash damage, you can choose between tanks, mines or hellbats. You can even mix in vikings and liberators later on.

Notes

• Putting spotting scvs or marines on the watchtowers to give you some warning of enemy attacks is a great move, get used to it
  
• Always pressure with your first 2 medivacs and marines - you don’t need to do killing damage but you should always move to the enemy territory.
  
• A bit of practice with your pickup micro to get out of bad situations will make this a risk-free move!
  
• If you’re worried about invisible or flying units, just drop a few turrets at your bases around 4:30. No earlier than this as it disrupts your economy to invest in this too early. So 4:00 engineering bay if you want to be very safe for this. As you get better you’ll learn when you can get away with skipping these entirely.

In Control

Spreading Bio

Spreading bio is one of the fundamental mechanics of terran. There are a lot of splitting micro trainers in the arcade, and you can learn more by doing than reading!

Medivac Load/Unload

• The fastest way to load up is to select your army and then right click on each dropship.
  
• The best way to load under pressure is by manually moving your medivacs over the bio before commanding them to hop in. This way they don't bug over terrain or decelerate because of pathing.
  
• Unload all is best when dropping out of sight. It needs the least amount of APM and all your units unload in one place.
  
• Moving drop is ideal for drops behind mineral lines or under pressure. Do this by right clicking where you want the units to start dropping, then hold SHIFT, press the unload hotkey, click on the medivac and finally move command (while still holding shift) on the final destination.

Splitting off Drops

• If you're performing a hot pickup, you can quickly select loaded medivacs by telling them to drop somewhere else. Only the medivacs with units inside will respond to the command, while empty ones will stay put.
  
• Make sure to shift-queue your move commands. Medivacs will always fly in a straight path, and there's a good chance they get shot down if they simply fly across the map. Skirt the edges and drop in favorable spots.