EPTIn here I would like to argue that people "playing the metagame" will speed up our journey towards a settled metagame and the discovery of something similar of a nash equilibrium. Furthermore, you would benefit from being one of those players.
Every single SC2 pro out there knows how to defend a 6 Pool, and they did so 3 months ago too. Yet during the last Dreamhack tournament a really cool guy managed to Zergling rush his way into the top 16, knocking out some of the world's best along the way. How could this possible happen?
While I might know how to stop a 6 Pool in general, I don't know how to stop an unscouted 6 Pool with a 15 Nexus. Yet I might use 15 Nexus a lot. Why? Because in general, it tends to be successful.
Another player might find himself in a different environment. He might find himself swarmed in 6 Pools, and thus he chooses a different opening. We both choose our openings based on how we anticipate our opponents to play, which we in turn base on our experience.
Which opening is best? That's a function of the environment, of the metagame.
Metagaming is a broad term usually used to define any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game. Another definition refers to the game universe outside of the game itself.
In simple terms, using out-of-game information, or resources, to affect one's in-game decisions.
-Wikipedia
Let's say I look up my next opponent's match history and see that he really likes 4 Gating. Now it might not be a good idea to blind counter a 4 Gate, but at least it would be a good idea to choose an opening which is good against a 4 Gate and to scout specifically for that saved up early energy on the Nexus, perhaps even sacrifice an Overlord to see it.
That would be metagaming. But not the kind of metagaming which I'm interested in here. I'm interested in how I generally tend to play against a generally unknown opponent and how I expect him to generally play against me. I'm interested in the hidden assumptions people carry into their game and how to twist them into my favour.
My Metagame
Sometime ago I always got a pretty quick Spire off 2 bases against Terran. This was vital because Banshees and Hellions tended to control the map thus preventing me from taking a third. Since a lot of Terrans played like this, a lot of Zergs responded just like me - they got that Spire. This made Banshee/Hellion play much less useful and thus Terrans moved on.
Nowadays I find myself playing mostly against Bio based attack timed to strike so that they would demolish me if I got those quick Mutalisks, and so I focus on rushing my Creep towards where I intend to take my third base, and on getting Baneling Speed asap. While this kind of Terran delays my Mutalisk harass, it lets me take my third earlier than the old Terran style did.
Perhaps this kind of Terran vs this kind of Zerg is slightly more Terran favored than the old kind of Terran vs the old kind of Zerg, or perhaps it's the other way round, or perhaps there's no difference at all. The interesting thing is the success enjoyed by the first people who switched styles.
Pioneers of new eras are generally vastly successful -for a while- but you don't always have to take a step forward to ride the metagame towards success. Sometimes it works just as well to take a step backwards.
I wonder, what would happen to me if a Terran chose to go back to an do aggressive Banshee build? Against my current build he would even have time to get an expansion up to fake the "normal" play-style and I imagine he would catch me unprepared.
Would it work twice? No. I don't have to go back to Mutalisk rushing to stop this, shuffling some more resources into scouting -perhaps a quick Overseer- would be enough. However, this would weaken my normal build an make his normal build more effective.
Am I saying that Zergs are basing their current playstyle around the assumption that no Terran would go 2 base Banshee against them? No, I'm saying that I am. I don't play TvZ often enough to know if Zergs in general do it and thus I can't tell if the Banshee build would be good, in general.
Their Metagame
While I don't know how Zergs on my level approach ZvT in general, I do know how the Terrans and Protosses approach playing against Zerg - and this I can use in my favor.
Let me give you an example. Some time a go a lot of Protoss players liked moving out around 7:00 to put some heavy, early pressure on me. Now this was quite bothersome to deal with and often put me in a hole from which I couldn't recover - and I thought ZvP was terribly inbalanced.
However, after giving it some thought I realised that the Protosses were only able to do this because they left their own expansions wide open, and so I began making more and earlier Zerglings. If the Protoss had know that I made those Zerglings he would just have sat in his base and I would have ended up wasting a lot of Larva on Zerglings. However, he didn't know what I was doing and Zergs in general wouldn't do this, so he moved out and I netted myself quite a few freewins on counter attacks.
I imagine I wasn't the only doing this since Protosses eventually stopped moving out blindly. This of course made me lose a few games with my Zergling stabs, but as I realised what was happening I could switch back and enjoy my old, normal playstyle with much less off a worry about that 7:00 timing attack. Now I could get Burrow up in time before he would have the means to scout for Zergling patrols and/or secure his natural with Cannons.
The Zergling stab might have been a silly abuse of the metagame involving little real skill, but so was their 7:00 timing attack really. I fought fire with fire and in the end the metagame stabilized somewhat.
In General
Eventually the metagame will probably settle in a Brood War like manner, but it will only do so if we constantly seek holes in our opponents' metagame. Sometimes others will help us do this, but sometimes the hand of fate must be forced, and those who run the forefront of a revolution will always enjoy a lot of cheap success.
I think it would be worth reminding that I'm not advocating out of the norm play just for the sake of it. I'm advocating abusing the assumptions of your typical opponent in your favour. Remember, we all play in different environments and that which puts you ahead in your metagame might put me behind in mine.
If you find a hole in your opponents' metagame, by all means go ahead and abuse it. I'm telling you that both you, your race and the StarCraft community in general will benefit from you abusing it - but don't come here yelling you've found the ultimate solution to the match up.
Furthermore, remember that much of the advice you read on these forums are based on the metagame in the poster's environment. Highly praised advice generally comes from top level players and is based on their metagame, but the metagame in your environment might make their advice counter-productive.
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To be honest, I don't know which tag to put on this, or even if it would be better off in the SC2 forum. Feel free to edit the title, if you have the power to do so.
