The Three Minds of a Starcraft Competitor

Starcraft 2 is unique in competitive gaming in attracting individuals that will commit significant time and effort to the analysis and development of the game. This is beyond casters, players and teams it can be seen in the mathematicians working on Aligulac, the software developer working on SC2 gears or the Team Liquid forum member who made equations on the path of ST.Life's zerglings through widow mine fields. Whether it is the inherent complexity of Starcraft that encourages these academic pursuits or simply that the audience it attracts has leanings in the above directions, this effort provides wonderful opportunities for both new and veteran players to improve themselves and their game play.

What I propose in the remainder of this article may not in any significant way affect how the average or even exceptional player experiences the game. I have attempted to look for trends in the highest level of game play and the nature of player interaction. Should it prove correct, it may assist players and teams which experience the most intense levels of competition such as WCS and Proleague. It may also assist professional commentators in their preparation.

I have spent a long time consuming what the Starcraft community produces and while I lack the creativity of community contributors such as Carbot, the commitment to detail of the staff of Aligulac or Day[9]'s raw bestial sex appeal I hope this can be found to be worthy of this wonderful (mostly) community.

About a year ago I was sitting making predictions with a friend on the ST.Life and IM.MVP GSL finals. Life's stratospheric run through the GSL that season brought him, for the first time, to the forefront of the Starcraft 2 community. As a stoic MVP fan I was sure that no matter what he would secure his 5th GSL victory and a position as one of the greatest RTS players of all time. Liquipedia has the results written in HTML (not quite as permanent as stone, but will have to do), and Life's win proceeded to solidify a period of Zerg dominance that lasted to the release of Heart of the Swarm (Excruciatingly long in Blizzard time).

Shattered, I looked for an explanation. How could some, child... dethrone the 'King of Wings'? His style was different, but were Korean Terrans so inflexible as to not be able to deal with it (Mostly). What was it about Life's style that lead him to absolutely dominate almost every player he faced? As I followed Life's progression, the ways he interacted with other players, Zergs attempting to replicate his style and other races trying to counter it I came to a realisation about the way professional players deal with information and interact with the game.

What follows is an attempt to structure the musings I have had over period since that fateful Barcraft.

Every new player, taking their first tentative steps into the Darwinian survival of the fittest that is the Starcraft 2 ladder, makes an effort to look for sources of knowledge to help shelter their soft pink undersides from the brutal predators of ladder ecosystem. They are quickly introduced to the idiosyncratic terminology and key tenets of the game.

Macro: Economy management and unit production.

Micro: Unit control and battle management.

Build Order: The optimisation of production with the goal of improving economy or production of units for aggressive or defensive purposes.

Composition: The unit composition of your supply. Catered to facilitate the most efficient engagements with the enemy army. Importantly, worker supply should be considered as a factor of the composition of army supply as they can both provide a substantial buffer in moments where the battle may hang in the balance and hinder army size in late game situations.

Decision Making: Functionally, strategy. When to act, when to be passive. The response to the opponents actions which may result in adjustments to the above factors.

The aspects of build order and compositions can be learned from guides or observation, however, the other aspects require a more natural development through game experience and practice. All actions within games can be classified under these 5 tenets right up to the highest level of play.

These tenets can also be simplified to three broad categories of game play.
Mechanics (Execution): Macro, Micro
Optimisation (Knowledge): Build Order, Composition
Strategy (Adaptation): Decision Making

Each player will have some level of competency in the above 3 categories. Also, each player will generally have comparable levels of competency to their skill level. Mechanics are the singular most important factor to game play and should be considered as the approximate level of your skill. In practise, casual (or even professional) players will display a higher competency in strategy when observing a game than when playing (more on this later). An interesting corollary to the above statement is that there is a theoretical upper limit to the game. This is not a “Skill Ceiling” , and should not lead to the redundant argument of Brood War elitists everywhere. The limit is a human one. There is a mechanical upper limit, how many locations a player can multi-task while maintaining production, an optimal build to achieve a timing, exploiting a hole in the current meta game and a perfect decision for every situation with respect to both players statuses.

With the above 2 ideas in mind, and accepting that not all men are created equal, we come to the modern Korean Starcraft scene. The elite nature of the Korean premier tournaments means that the competitors mechanical skill is at the upper threshold and approximately comparable to each other. In tournaments with more diverse player pools, such as Dreamhack or MLG, the wide range of mechanical competency can lead to difficulties discerning a players base play-style. The mechanical difference is cause of Korean dominance more than any other factor. So we reach the base proposition of the article:

At high levels of play, where mechanical skill is at an upper threshold there are the exceptional players, the players whose hand eye coordination is extraordinary. By nature these players are “Better” at the game, they are capable of achieving more, in less time, then their “ordinary“ counterparts. To counter act this apparent inadequacy on behalf of the rest of the population it is necessary for the other top tier players to excel in the other aspects of the game. Hence, in top tier Starcraft tournaments there are three kinds of players. The mechanicals, which I have labelled the Athletes. The optimisers which I have labelled Architects. Finally the decision makers, which have been labelled Masterminds.

As stated above the athletes exceptional ability could be classed as their natural hand eye coordination. Their interaction with the game is simply at a higher level, they are able to make actions more quickly with a lower rate of error. Stylistically, mechanical players will play “Standard” relatively safe or economic openings that yield to a mid and late game with critical mass of units that they can control on multiple fronts eventually overwhelming the other players ability to cope.

Their play could be characterised by a large proportion of the value of their army being in the proximity of the enemies base for significant periods of the game time. The Athletes game awareness and control gives them this capacity. For a lesser player having a portion of your army so vulnerable near your opponents strongest points could be catastrophic, a mechanical player however will not only maintain the lives of those units but also exploit opportunistic attacks, using them in combination with other proximate unit groups or main army pushes to gradually wear down the opponent.

The strength of the Athlete lays in a strong mid-game and a practised and comfortable late game. However their comfort in the standard game can be exploited. Athletes are the most likely to use a consistent build order across multiple games in a set. Strong timings can shatter a mechanical player before they reach the critical mass necessary to truly take advantage of their superior ability. The reluctance to stray from standard can also be exploited through the use of unusual builds or compositions that are not necessarily timings but force adaptation on behalf of the Athlete.

Amusingly, for a strategy game, the athletes greatest enemy is thought. Their strength lays in habitual action and prompted reaction and is the key to their speed. Thought, spurred by in-game confusion or external distraction may cause an Athlete to fall apart.

Every player currently active, that makes any effort to learn or improve in the game, likely uses a build or a composition innovated by an Architect. Architects invest their preparation time in build orders and compositions. These usually take the form of timings that exploit certain weaknesses in the current meta-game but can also be targeted at specific players or maps for a best of N series. Architects are, probably, the most common player type in the professional scene.

Architect is an apt name for the class of player that looks to rigid build orders to form the scaffolding of their game play. They are so reliant, in fact, that even non-critical interruptions to the build can cause a collapse in their game as they have not necessarily prepared the adaptations to their play necessary to recover. Interruptions may include enemy harass/scouting/composition or even a personal failure on behalf of the Architect to exact the critical damage they require to establish a comfortable lead in the game.

It may be deceptive to think of Architects as one or two base timing players, their machinations may extend well into the late game after unsettling the opponent with earlier timings or establishing a unique composition. However, the later they extend their planning the more likely an interruption from the opponent that may affect their ability to cope.
Their play may be characterised by a significantly lower map presence than mechanical players excepting main army pushes or timings in which the vast majority of the value of their army being present in proximity of the opponents army or base. (This varies race to race due to methods of reinforcement and defence, Protoss having warp in, recall and versatile static defence can commit more army to a push while Zerg requires a cross map rally and Terran may require army supply committed to defence as well as a cross map rally).

All architects should not be considered as innovators. Just as in the profession of its name-sake, only a few architects act to renew or develop build orders the rest simply emulate and adapt refined timings as the core of their game play. Hence, the average architect will choose a map appropriate build with a composition/timing that exploits the current meta and then relies on that advantage to carry out victory.

Masterminds are the rarest kind of player, making their play difficult to describe. The defining attribute of the mastermind is they will not lose the game. No actions or decisions of the side of the mastermind will be in favour of the opponent. The mastermind will never over-commit to aggression or fail to scout, a timing will not be critical to the success or failure of a mastermind in the game. These attributes make the mastermind the most likely, in the event of the situation, make a comeback.

While fundamentally the mastermind may be considered the strongest style it still relies on player judgement and hence can be flawed. The mastermind can also still be susceptible to being overwhelmed by an Athletes multi-tasking or to be exposed by an intelligent timing from a Architect. Further, a mastermind will be the most composed of the three player types. In the event of loss of composure a Mastermind will also have the capability to re-focus for the next game.

Functionally, a masterminds base play style is difficult to define due to the small number of active masterminds and the large variations in racial play and preference. However, it could broadly be described as using the techniques of the Athlete and the architect but less committal. They may have proximate army supply as the athlete, but it will be a lower proportion than the athlete allowing for the possibility of loss. They may use timings or main army aggression, but the game's result does not hinge upon its absolute success.

When Athletes play Architects:
Athletes are the apex predator of the Starcraft food web. Not only are they more naturally skilled, their abilities present themselves best when being aggressive. As such, when athletes confront architects, the architects goal should be to prevent the athlete from a) reaching a critical mass of units which will allow the athlete to wear and eventually overwhelm the architect b) thats... thats actually about it. But it can be done in several different ways. The most popular of which is usually a strong early timing or all in. Innovation has recently been on the receiving end of many of these timings, and we have seen him falter in facing them.

An alternative to the aggressive or all-in timing, which has to do damage to ensure victory, is a tech-switch timing or a deceptive timing. In this a player creates a composition which the opponent counters only to reveal a new unit or ability that the opponent hasn’t prepared for. This technique is most easily executed by Zerg due to the nature of their production, it is the most difficult for Terran as a sudden tech switch would require a) a significant drop in army size and b) the addition of large quantities of new buildings which are relatively easy to detect when compared to the addition of a single new building for Zerg.

The final option for a architect is simply to endure on a 3 to 4 base economy (depending on map) and achieving a “death ball” composition. The efficiency of these composition negates the control advantage of the athletes. During the final period of Wings of Liberty this was clear with the Infestor Brood Lord composition.

In these situations, as the onus is on the architect, it is necessary for the Athlete to understand that the above actions are likely. Hence, a quick identification and response on behalf of the athlete is necessary. This presents a problem though, Athletes by nature are strongest in a mid-game situation, as they tend to do “greedy” builds in order to reach that mid games as soon as possible. These greedy builds sacrifice scouting and safety against early timings. As stated before, thought on behalf of the athlete could result in a collapse of the mechanics which make them superior. To avoid this comprehensive scouting and reactions should be planned and practised into the build. This may delay the attainment of the critical mass necessary to begin grinding away of the opponent, however early map control provided by, say reapers and hellions, can have their own benefits.

Athletes and Masterminds:
Masterminds are a different proposition than Architects entirely. Masterminds will be less inclined to participate in binary strategies, either succeed or fail, but will rather prompt decision making on behalf of the Athlete that will provide opportunity for error. When facing an Athletes, masterminds have several techniques. Masterminds will typically exploit the aggression that Athletes favour.

One method is that relentless aggression from athletes can lead to an over committal and a loss of army exposing vulnerability to immediate counter-attacks. To facilitate this strategy several factors must align. The map must be inclined toward well defended 3-4 base play otherwise the athlete will gain efficiency through harassment or multiple front attacks. The mastermind must be capable of achieving a efficient defensive unit composition. The athlete must consider himself ahead due to early gains, if they believe their army is even or the mastermind is ahead a frontal commitment is less likely.

Another option is targeted harassment at critical moments forcing decisions from athletes to attack or defend. Athletes tendencies to be active on the map can leave their bases vulnerable to counter aggression. This will most often happen when the athlete is staging an attack, the efficient engagements that athletes can sustain to grind the opponent fall flat if their economy or production are compromised. However, as they are aggressive by nature athletes will often choose aggression over returning to protect their bases. And though they may trade evenly or exceptionally, their push will have been designed to compromise rather than win outright, hence their ability to maintain aggression will be severely affected. This is not an over committal as in the first point as a swift counter-attack by the mastermind is not necessarily viable.

Athletes have the most difficulty dealing with Masterminds. When a mastermind harasses it will be with the minimum cost of units that prompt the most expensive response from their opponent. At no point will the mastermind commit to aggression or defence in such a way to compromise their own position. One method may simply be knowledge, positioning units and structures in such a way to give complete vision of the area around your base will give an athlete opportunity to react to harass before it achieves critical damage. Some number of units will be required to facilitate base defence as structures in most cases can be avoided and are a costly compromise.

For an athlete it is important to factor situations where the opponent is positioned favourably in terms of geography and composition into their game plan. An athlete is only likely to lose the game at their opponents base or at their own in these situations. Their control and awareness will mean that mid-map engagements are more likely to be favourable. Masterminds can also be their own worst enemies in these situations, baiting the athlete to attack while committing to counter attacking can back fire as the athlete commits wholly to the attack and breaks the defensive front.

Masterminds and Architects:
When the two mechanically inferior classes clash it is quite possible for “standard” games to occur. The disadvantage they feel when playing athletes is not present, and so the tactics used above are less likely. Architects should not rely on all in timings as the mastermind is more likely to scout/be prepared for it than a athlete. Nor should a mastermind play too defensively as it may result in the architect achieving a strong later timing or composition that is difficult to counter.(architects being less inclined toward aggression, outside of timings, would make committal to defence more costly to the mastermind than the architect.)

As always, in terms of mindset it is important for the architect to be even or ahead of their opponent in the manner of their choosing for their optimal play. Anything that the mastermind can do to interrupt the flow of their game can significantly improve the possibility of victory. A simple early timing that provides scouting opportunity, versatile tech, and an opportunity to inflict damage could shatter the architects outlook for the game.

The architect can play as they do against a athlete simply with less reliance on “all in's”. While a mastermind is more likely to scout an all in and have a more defensive opening, strong timings can still inflict damage as the mastermind will lose out to the athlete in battle control. Hence the architect should rely on two or three consecutive timings to eventually defeat them rather than one crippling push.

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Symbol may not be the most prolific of architects in terms of builds to his name or meta game revolutions, however he is arguably one of the most successful, with multiple high placing finishes in code S and premier league. Soulkey's KeSPA background mean that he has among the very best mechanics, it is however his composure and decision-making under pressure that define him as a Mastermind.

In this game, on the odd map of Gwangali Beach, Symbol executes a unique Roach and queen push. The push was aided by a creep highway, made more effective by the straight line between the two natural bases. The push is scouted and held just barely on the threshold of Soulkeys base. It is then followed by a secondary push assisted by a nydus.

The players actions and reactions can be defined by a few short minutes of game play. For the first 8 minutes it may seem that the players act in similar manner, establishing natural bases and developing their technology. However, an important factor in these first few minutes is how the two players deal with information. While Symbol produces only 2 Zerglings and attempts a single run-by into Soulkey's base, Soulkey produces 8, the first 2 attempted a run-by as with Symbols, the next 2 probed the front of Symbols base, seeking to see composition and movement, the final 4 see the roaches and queens moving along the creep highway.

The following few minutes progress as such;

8:15 - First sign of creep highway

8:30 - Soulkeys handful of lings mentioned above confirm Symbols unit composition worker count is 45 to 41 in Soulkeys favour.

9:00 - Soulkey has produced 5 spine crawlers

10:30 - The attack has ended, symbol has killed 10 workers, queens and forced the aforementioned spine crawlers, before the roaches are eventually overwhelmed At this stage Soulkey begins to exploit his tech advantage. The worker count is Soulkey (33) to Symbol (44), the discrepancy is further emphasised by the significant time the workers are off the mineral lines. However, it is important to note that in the attack Symbol lost half again as many resources as Soulkey did.

11:30 - Soulkey has used his Mutalisk advantage in the past minute to its fullest. Symbol has been forced to make spore crawlers and overlords (which were lost on the creep highway after the failed all in), the economies are now equal. The mutalisks have provided another benefit, Soulkey has full vision of Symbols base and is aware that symbol has not attempted a new tech route(he had started a hydralisk den in a fit of confusion after his all-in had failed, but cancelled almost immediately) or a new base. With this information he begins clearing creep tumours making a future push more difficult to implement.

Clearing creep creates enormous difficulty for Symbol, his push will be slowed but it will also limit anti-air as queens cannot support the push. Without anti-air supporting the push Symbol would attrition units to the mutalisks constantly. This forces a Nydus network from Symbol inducing significant cost and thereby reducing possible army size.

12:00 - Soulkey has taken a significant income lead, in mirror match ups this is significant as both players have the capacity to build the same units hence gains are achieved generally through army size or army control, rather than composition efficiency.

When symbols attack is initiated, the mutalisks serve to draw his attention away from the front and deny overlords from granting high ground vision. Symbol is rebuffed and forced to satisfy himself by holding a hard contain on Soulkeys natural. This is again a situation difficult for Soulkey, the narrowing at the natural gives a concave advantage to Symbol and a difficult point to break. The mutalisks though still achieving some significant damage are not relevant in army fights, and symbols mineral lines are largely protected.

To break this Soulkey invests in a Nydus of his own (a strategy often seen in TvT with clock banshee's). By sending only three roaches through the network, Soulkey forces a response from symbol that is disproportionate to the cost of the tech and the network. As it happens Symbol over commits at the front and Soulkeys network provides a medium to immediately punish and force the end of the game.
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*WCS Finals sOs vs Soulkey Ro4 game 1 whirlwind. (an example of an Architect defeating a Mastermind, the Mastermind fails to punish the Architects compositional plans)Link

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Innovation has been the one of the most dominant players of the last year. His mechanical production and control have lead to significant wins using an attrition style against Zergs. sOs is one of the more successful kespa protoss' in the individual leagues with high placing finishes in WCS KR and the WCS Seasonal finals, his is undeniably a Architect relying on timings and odd compositions for victory.

In this game, we are presented with sOs endeavouring to reach a composition of Tempest/Templar. Though sOs acts to achieve harass and counter attacks in this game, it is largely his composition not his control that results in damage to Innovation. Having identified sOs's goal composition, I will focus on how Innovation dealt with this complication.

Sos opens with Oracle harass, which achieves very little and then techs to High Templar to establish a fast third base, that Innovation largely fails to punish. Innovation remains ignorant of sOs's tempest goal until approximately the 16 minute mark where a tempest shot is first sighted. However, at 14:15 Innovation had begun to blindly build Vikings anticipating the standard Protoss tech switch to colossi.

Once Innovation acknowledges the presence of Tempests, he makes the error of engaging his brain. He places down 3 starports at the 16:15 minute mark, and begins Viking production in earnest. Following this is a protracted period of base taking and base destruction Innovation swiftly takes his 4th base and sOs's follows soon after. Innovation begins production of Ghosts quite late, when considering the timing of sOs's Templar, at the 19 minute mark ghosts are first produced and are only added to the active army at 21:30. Innovation proceeds to destroy sos's 4th in the 21st minute simply by targeting and running, he forces it to cancel in the 22nd minute again.

In the 25th minute innovation proceeds to destroy sos's 4th once more, however at this stage innovations army is composed almost entirely of starport units and ghosts, an expensive combination. Destroying the base is costly to innovation, the supply counts are significantly equalised giving sOs a dominant army advantage. As an immediate result Innovation loses an attempted 5th. Sos with his army advantage and minor harass manages to establish his 4th once more.

The pivotal set of engagements happens then at 29-31 minutes. Both parties lose incredibly expensive armies and Innovation once again loses his 5th base while sos has a stable 4th and even manages to temporarily establish a 5th. Base counts temporarily in sos's favour while sos has a stronger army count. Things looked bleak for Innovation, however his economic situation forced him to revert to a simpler composition which is the best possible thing to happen to innovation in this game.

Low on minerals Innovation begins to produce the same composition of units he had started the game with, simple MMM. It allows him to quickly stabilise 2 new bases and to begin denying sOs's harass which had been quite effective in preventing his bases all game. MMM, functions well in small discrete units, his Viking/ghost composition, costly as it, needed to stay together and achieve efficient main army engagements to be viable. Unpractised as he was with his improvised composition, main army engagements tended to favour sOs. With the small discrete MMM balls he was able to hit on multiple fronts, destroying sOs's vital economy and making his own victory inevitable.

Innovation was slow to realise that the Tempests were not the actual threat of the composition, it maybe that he never realised this fact, he was forced into a simple composition more by his economic situation than by actual planning on his behalf. Once he had reverted, he was able to enact strategies which took advantage of his mechanical skill, control on multiple fronts to stabilise new expansions and then again to abuse the immobile, costly composition of sOs.

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*WCS Season 2 OSL Ro16 Group A Parting vs Symbol game 1 Star Station. (An example of a Architect beating a Athlete by unsettling them with a sudden army composition changes)Link

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Rain is arguably the most successful KeSPA Protoss and without doubt one of the best Protoss players in the world. He plays a conservative style ensuring personal security, while applying some harass with warp ins and tech. Bomber is one of the most famous players in the world, though consistently among the very best he has had relatively limited tournament success. He plays a very mechanical style, often overwhelming opponents through the sheer number of units he has produced.

The game is set on Star Station, a map in which both Protoss and Terran find difficult to establish 3rd bases. As a rule this tends to favour Terran more than it does Protoss which is illustrated by the statistics listed at the start of the OSL broadcast of the game (stating that of the 4 games Rain had played on Star Station, the three against Terran had all been loses). With this in mind, something more than Rains standard play was required to deal with Bomber on this map.

The game opens up in a "standard" both players taking safe expands after their first structures (The large main base surface area leaving Protoss vulnerable to reapers, and Bomber plays it safe anticipating the possibility of an all in on a map that rain would find difficult). Here the game begins to deviate from standard, Bomber takes a "proxy" third base, negating the vulnerability of the natural third by hiding it in one of the unused main bases. Rain also takes this opportunity to proxy (in the diagonally opposite main to Bombers proxy), he however takes the alternative risk of placing his tech structures rather than a base (Easier for terran to proxy bases due to the flying ability of the buildings as well as the lack of a worker trail, Mules..., to reveal its position).

It is important to note how Rain and Bomber treat information differently in this game. Like Soulkey we find that Rain has a constant map presence with low cost units looking for the unexpected. Bomber however has committed to a solid mid game and is playing as greedily as possible to ensure an overwhelming force. As such, Rain quickly scouts Bombers hidden third base and forces bomber to retrieve it simply with the threat of action. To counter his own blind play, bomber places bunkers at the front and marines in mineral lines, effectively protecting himself from a broad range of possible attacks. It is important to distinguish the difference between bombers lack of scouting and Symbols in the first example, where symbol had predetermined his all in and so scouting had become irrelevant, Bomber is just being greedy.

Rains Dark Templar break my brain, he hits at a stage where all three command centres are low on energy, almost an entire minute after his dark shrine had finished. Logic would dictate that the tech advantage would be temporary and that every attempt should be made to capitalise immediately, he takes another stance however and whether his goal was to exploit a moment he knew both command centres would be low or to lull Bomber into a false sense of security he succeed. He makes the minimum initial committal, 2 (one for each base), and a third when he sees that he has caught Bomber completely unawares.

Rains logic with the Dark Templar is simple but brilliant, the templar exist not only to deal damage but to also consume bombers attention. As such he ensures that all three dark templar are evenly spaced (even when on hold position waiting for an opening) and that damage is sacrificed to ensure the survival of the Templar. When Bomber stabilises with turrets in mineral lines Rain moves the templar from the natural to the main, simultaneously moving the second templar out of scan range. When the scan expires, acknowledging that further damage is unlikely in mineral lines, he attacks a reactor prompting another immediate scan from Bomber.

His follow up attack at the 11:30 mark, happens at a stage when he is sure that Bombers main army has left his base, uses 4 zealots to destroy the missile turrets at which point the dark templar enters the fray, 11 more workers are killed with this harass and another scan is forced. Total cost of the attack was 650 resources and it cost Bomber 1070 + mining time. He then warps in a single dark templar to deny the third.

Though Bombers army is close to his main at the time of the attack he decided to pick up and boost his Medivacs toward Rains base. The one mistake Rain appears to make in this game is the assump-tion that he could hold his third base without the area of effect damage that Protoss requires for efficient trades with MMM. Bomber proceeds to abuse the geography of the map and the respective unit compositions, destroying both the main base and the newly finished third.]

Bomber at this point has wholly abandoned his economy, he is producing units constantly on 2 bases and attempting to trade with Rain efficiently. For the most part he achieves just that, both supplies hover at about the same level. However, there is a timer on bombers aggression, though he is barely able to maintain constant aggression each unit he loses will become harder and harder to replace as his bases mine out. Though he has a third command centre he is unwilling to place it down as he would have to commit army to defend it when he requires all available army to maintain efficient trades with rain who has both a better economy and more advanced tech.

Bomber makes a last attempt to break Rains units by pulling from his limited supply of workers, which ultimately results in failure. His reliance on aggression rather than stabilisation, even after equalising the economic situation by killing two nexii could be seen as flawed. He effectively limited his options and his time frame for execution. Rains harass at the start was not game ending, it simply tipped Bomber into making pressured decisions for the remainder of the game.

*WCS Season 2 OSL Ro8 Supernova vs Rain game 1 Bel'shir Vestige (An example of a Mastermind losing to a well controlled desperation push)Link

Much of what I have stated about players and match-ups actually exists on an intuitive level within the community. Caster's talk of players being "Timing Based" or of being comfortable in a midgame where they can overwhelm an opponent. When I hear them say this it is an affirmation, to me, of the strength of these categories. By categorising the styles of play, with definitive identifiers as I have stated above, it can reduce the pre-game decision making leading to more accurate assessments and stronger responses. It can also lead to players identifying their own weaknesses and refining their own play.

It may also be plausible that players exist that do not fall into these categories. The categorised players are exceptional in achieving a disproportionate number of victories due to one of the aspects of game play. (It could be visualized in the manner of the chart below, these values are arbitrary and do not represent the true values of the players).



The strengths and vulnerabilities of the 3 categories come from an over reliance on an aspect of their play, (Innovation does not need to develop his decision making as his mechanical skill earns him the victories he requires). As such balanced players lack the amplified traits in the above categories. Though to some extent, considering how a balanced player would perform it makes me think of masterminds as decision making under pressure is very likely the rarest trait. Hence, even having a rate of victories due to strategy to your mechanical and optimisation skill may be enough to classify you as a Mastermind. I am undecided and it may be cause for discussion and development of the theory.

After a year of musing, and several weeks of writing it is a relief, somewhat, to have finalised this article. I hope that it promotes discussion and development in the community.

In practise casual (or even professional) players will display a higher competency in strategy when observing a game than when playing

This could be for multiple reasons primarily the asymmetrical nature of information in the game (The correct decision being more apparent when you can see both perspectives), but also due to the habitual nature of Mechanics means engaging higher functions to make decisions will negatively affect your mechanical speed.

I understand that acknowledgements are traditionally placed at the start of texts. However, as an internet article, and an excessively ponderous one at that, I am making belated efforts to affect palatability. Though I presented the article to x5.PiG in an essentially completed state, his rapid understanding and immediate enthusiasm proved to be a great boon. He asked the correct questions, acting to further solidify the concepts in my mind. When I considered late changes, he steadied my hand and encouraged caution and reflection.

Having only a few shallow interactions with the Australian Starcraft community, it was refreshing to experience PiG' s natural passion and enthusiasm for the game.
Thanks again, PiG.