31,500 Replays - A look at balance in Starcraft II - Page 12

On February 05 2012 03:57 LilTip wrote:
The average game lengths seem rather short to me. Is that due to a majority of these being EU where there are a lot more hard timings or are my games just longer than average?

On February 05 2012 01:45 Acritter wrote:
Well, even more support for Tal'Darim Altar being my favorite map. Hell, I even like it PvP. Very balanced PvP map, it is. Never strays from 50%.

I don't think these statistics mean TOO much, though. They're over five months, and there were some pretty significant balance changes and metagame shifts in the past five months.

On February 04 2012 15:46 ProBot wrote:


Define "playing the game right." Not to be a dick just want to understand your point of view a bit better. I suck so i'm not going to get into anything with you but i would assume Most masters players and above have a decent idea of how to play the game hence why they're in said league. Generally speaking.

But i'm silver so what do i know.

On February 04 2012 16:13 -orb- wrote:


Sorry, it's just something I rarely see. Even if MC did it one time, it happens almost never. I just did an analysis in sc2gears of every single korean replay I have (and I don't remember deleting any, though maybe some really old ones aren't in there), and of the 72 replays that start with "Pylon, Gateway, Assimilator, Pylon, Cybernetics Core, Assimilator," only 1 of them has the next building as a nexus (which lost). Only 7 have a nexus after another pylon, and the record there is 3-4.

So okay, perhaps ~10% of the time people will expand immediately after going double gas, but it's not common, and it is a build that doesn't win very much.



Depends on many, many factors. First off you have to take into account matchup:
PvP - could mean anything. Double gas on 1base is very standard. For the most part you can rule out 4gate, though sometimes people will fake you with 2nd gas and still 4gate. In PvP specifically you can probably also rule out 1gate nexus for the mast part as you'd do that build with 1 gas. Could be standard robo build into immortals or colossi, could be stargate build, could be blink+obs, could be blink, could be dt, could be 3gate expand. The list goes on, because double gas is pretty much required for toss especially in that matchup.

PvT - could be 3gate voidray, could be blink+obs, could be 4gate blink, could be 3gate sentry expand, could be 1 gate robo sentry+obs expand, could be a phoenix build, could be DT, could be a wacky templar rush, could be double gas 4gate. I'm sure there are some I am missing

PvZ - well you know they're not forge FEing. The most common occurrence is probably 3gate sentry expand, but of course it could still be 1gate sentry expand, some 1-base blink build, DT expand, 1gate voidray expand, some weird robo warp prism + sentry build, and of course there are plenty of other alternatives that are less common like 1-base colossus or something silly like that.

There are so many more factors that go into what build your opponent is doing than just if they get double gas or not, but it certainly helps narrow it down. Keep tabs not only of gas but other indicative elements such as the amount of chrono saved, where the chrono is being used, and how many sentries are made early game. If your opponent gets double gas and you scout a low number of sentries, you better prepare for the possibility of DT or stargate (or blink if u see a high number of stalkers).