[H][D] Analyze my TvT with me!

XiGua

Sweden3085 Posts

June 16 2011 19:00 GMT

Hello guys, girls and others!

Background
My name is XiGua, no not the famous Zerg player from China but the not-that-famous Terran from Europe, Sweden. I am a Diamond player(1358 points, 104 wins) soon to be masters whenever that stupid ladder stops bugging. >.<

Certain Problems
I do fairly well in every matchup. But it's very frustrating to have one matchup that you are worse with, you know? It's that matchup that you want to avoid having, the matchup that you try to love but you just can't after all it has done to you, you know?
Well, THAT matchup for me is TvT. I loved it before and I still try to. Before I had problems with TvP, later I was clueless in TvZ and now it's TvT. Hopefully after I have "solved" TvT I won't go back to having troubles in TvP...

Let's Analyze!
Here are two replays of TvTs that I just played, they are played after eachother on ladder. The first one I want to present is me against a Masters Terran called Frank. Now Frank is a very good man, he doesn't cheese and tries to play standard. He wants to do drops like MMA and likes to hide his expansions. The second replay that I have is a game between me and a Diamond Terran called Morgul. Now Morgul, he has a very fierce name and is nothing like Frank. He doesn't want to fast expand before he has hurt his opponent so much that he cries and begs for his mother to come and cheer him up. No, he is not a gentleman but a warrior who likes aggresive play, a man who likes to have 1 worker with him in his fights, he is Morgul.

Now jokes aside, here are the replays. I have added a timeline to each one so you can follow my analysis and try to discuss it with me, let's have fun and that's all what Starcraft 2 is about right?

XiGua vs Frank
Map: Typhon Peaks

Timeline:
+ Show Spoiler +

3:30 - I want to open a standard 1 rax reaper
expand but scout a complete wall off with one
marine on the outside. Since this is ladder I start to smell something fishy and anticipates a 3 rax all-in.
5:05 - I try to scout once again to see if he has moved out already, to my surprise I come in to the base and scout a CC building and a factory + another barracks (which I thought was a starport).
5:38 - I realize he made a 1 rax reaper expand and I try now know that I am very far behind in economy and needs to build a CC.
10:50 - I go for two starports but I have no idea why. The first starport also gets a reactor... WOW, am I going heavy air even though I don't want to?
12:00 and 12:42 - This is a double drop scenario. I go for a small drop first and intercepts 3 supply depots, at the same time his drop is moving out and at a later stage drops 2 siege tanks and 8 marines. The AI goes NUTS and my units run around like rats being chased by a cat. I fend of the drop but lose around 10 SCVs
14:21 - Let's look at the difference for both our bases. Frank has 4 barracks, 2 factories with tech lab and one reactored starport and his third has just been established. XiGua has 5 barracks, 1 factory with tech lab and 1 reactored starport and 1 "naked" starport. My third is ready to lift off.
14:37 - I kill his main army and our supplies are even, I realize that I can move in for the kill but fails to unsiege my tanks and thinks that they will follow my marines. The results, well not pretty atleast...
17:05 - I want to drop again but when I hover over the top right corner of his base I see a big army moving out trying to circumvent my contain in the middle. He takes out my drop, 8 marines + a medivac and I panic.
17:30 -> END - From here I feel like the game is over. I can't stop his siege over my third and I lose alot of marines for nothing. I unsiege and lose my contain and am stuck on 2 bases against 3. He later just rolls me with too much of an army.

Analysis
+ Show Spoiler +

My opening really messed me up. Because of the fear of a cheese I went for a totally different build then the one I aimed for. Several other factors would be that my drop did less damage than his, I only had one factory the whole game and instead had 2 starports... One important thing to note is that my micro-management was very bad. Looking at the timeline, @14:37 the mistake I did really threw away the only advantage that I had and I couldn't macro up enough units before his push behind my third was started.

XiGua vs Morgul
Map: The Shattered Temple

Timeline:
+ Show Spoiler +

3:10 - I go for the 1 rax reaper expand and I see that my opponent has taken gas but no tech lab on the barracks.
4:44 - My reaper scouts his base and sees 3 marines anticipating my poor scout. I see 1 factory almost done building and no tech lab on the barracks yet.
5:08 - I would like to comment on my follow-up to my opening here. I get fast stim as early as possible, then I build 2 additional barracks for more marines and at 150 minerals and 100 gas I build a factory, later I build my starport as soon as possible.
6:30 - My scan reveals all his tech structures and I see no tech lab on the starport so I know that I don't need to use my engineering bay for turrets. Instead I anticipate a BFH-drop.
7:00 - I pull all my marines into my mineral line to defend the drop but then I am afraid of an attack in the front, so I have some marines at my natural which I just landed as well.
7:30 - He actually went for a double siege tank + 9 marines drop.
7:50 - I see it and pull all my units from the main to attack thinking that I can beat him. He has done a very nice concave with his units and kill everything that I had in my main.
8:10 -> END - I now pull everything I have and try to stop his drop but even that fails. It's GG!

Analysis
+ Show Spoiler +

This game is pretty easy to see why I lost, I just didn't have enough units when he dropped me. I shouldn't have had those marines at my natural but instead with my main army. This drop really made me doubt the viability of my opening and transition. Before this transition worked really well but now I don't know. Is it better to go for a factory instead of the fast stim for some earlier tanks? That's what I did before and it also worked but I feel more safe with more marines against bansheese.

Conclusion
I think that my decision making is sub par to my opponent or at least I try to read too much into my scouting information. If I just play standard I should win since I have better macro than most of my opponents. But we'll see how you guys respond, let's do this!

XiGua

zezamer

Finland5701 Posts

June 16 2011 19:32 GMT

You are trying to much really, people don't like reading essays

Try to keep it short so people don't get bored

User was temp banned for this post.

Nexic

United States729 Posts

June 16 2011 19:38 GMT

On June 17 2011 04:32 zezamer wrote:
You are trying to much really, people don't like reading essays

Try to keep it short so people don't get bored

I liked reading his post tbh, took like 45 seconds to read...

Watching replays now as I'm curious, diamond terran and I usually reaper expo. Will edit

1st game - I think you overreacted by building the 3 barracks when you scouted him. A wall-off at the ramp doesn't necessarily mean marine/scv all-in, e.g. he could be going hellion drop or banshee, you don't know. Even if it was a marine/scv all-in, you don't need to make 3 rax to beat that, you should be fine with a bunker repair + marines/tank. You should have gotten a 2nd factory WAY earlier, you still don't have one at 20 mins into the game.

You should probably have pulled back more than just marines to defend your third, you obviously can't beat what he had with just marines. Then at 18:00 you sieged all your tanks in range of his and they all basically died. Marines need to go in first in an engagement like that.

Broodlings

United States157 Posts

June 16 2011 19:39 GMT

On June 17 2011 04:32 zezamer wrote:
You are trying to much really, people don't like reading essays

Try to keep it short so people don't get bored

I thought it was very funny and worth the extra length... To each his own I guess

KosQ

Germany223 Posts

June 16 2011 20:33 GMT

Heres my take on the first game against Frank:
You say you wanted to go for a 1rax reaper and are afraid of an allin/cheese due to the wallin. I think sticking with your 1rax reaper plan would have still been the best choice here since you can completely scout his base with your reaper and react accordingly. If he is able to kill your reaper as it jumps up his base, save your energy and scan him since he doesn't want you to see what hes doing and might be going for "something fishy".
The moment you reacted with 3rax marines is when he got too far ahead of you in tech and economy. From there on, you never quite came back into the game.

What I think you could've done better:
I noticed some big macro hickups all over the game. There were several times, starting quite early on, when you didn't build any workers. In comparison, Frank seemed to keep it up (I wasn't focusing on what hes doing but I noticed he had the same foodcount/mineralcount at the time his expansion was 5/6 complete. Also, he was ahead in tech an could easily have defended a stim-marine push with his siegetanks. This leads to what I think was your other big mistake this game: I dont really see what the 3-rax marine opening was for. There is only one timing you could have hit and that is an allin shortly before Frank had siegemode. It seemed to me a bit like you (blindly) overanticipated your enemy, paniced and build 3 rax.

My conclusion:
Don't overreact to what you see. If you really feel the enemy might allin use a scan or reaper and react accordingly but dont react into the dark. If you decide to play into the dark, use a viable build. (I dont consider 3rax stim viable on a map like this, especially without medivac and without an expansion)
I hope this is somewhat what you expected and helps you. In your post you say "follow my analysis and try to discuss it with me", yet most of your analysis seems to consist of stating facts of what is going on in the game - to me, it isn't really clear what you want commented/analysed

XiGua

Sweden3085 Posts

June 16 2011 20:51 GMT

On June 17 2011 05:33 KosQ wrote:
Heres my take on the first game against Frank:
You say you wanted to go for a 1rax reaper and are afraid of an allin/cheese due to the wallin. I think sticking with your 1rax reaper plan would have still been the best choice here since you can completely scout his base with your reaper and react accordingly. If he is able to kill your reaper as it jumps up his base, save your energy and scan him since he doesn't want you to see what hes doing and might be going for "something fishy".
The moment you reacted with 3rax marines is when he got too far ahead of you in tech and economy. From there on, you never quite came back into the game.

What I think you could've done better:
I noticed some big macro hickups all over the game. There were several times, starting quite early on, when you didn't build any workers. In comparison, Frank seemed to keep it up (I wasn't focusing on what hes doing but I noticed he had the same foodcount/mineralcount at the time his expansion was 5/6 complete. Also, he was ahead in tech an could easily have defended a stim-marine push with his siegetanks. This leads to what I think was your other big mistake this game: I dont really see what the 3-rax marine opening was for. There is only one timing you could have hit and that is an allin shortly before Frank had siegemode. It seemed to me a bit like you (blindly) overanticipated your enemy, paniced and build 3 rax.

My conclusion:
Don't overreact to what you see. If you really feel the enemy might allin use a scan or reaper and react accordingly but dont react into the dark. If you decide to play into the dark, use a viable build. (I dont consider 3rax stim viable on a map like this, especially without medivac and without an expansion)
I hope this is somewhat what you expected and helps you. In your post you say "follow my analysis and try to discuss it with me", yet most of your analysis seems to consist of stating facts of what is going on in the game - to me, it isn't really clear what you want commented/analysed

Oops, forgot my analysis in the end. GOD DANGIT, gonna edit it later.

XiGua

Sweden3085 Posts

June 16 2011 22:24 GMT

Added more analysis. Please give me some help because TvT is the only thing hindering me from getting promoted to Masters. (I lost my 7 win streak to Frank)

scrub96

United States76 Posts

June 16 2011 23:11 GMT

In the first game you kept changing up your build. The real benefit of practicing on ladder to me is testing a build against a variety of openers. In this case if you continued to 1 rax expand you would have come out even into the mid game. Instead of sticking with what you were practicing you started cobbling together a build.

Stick with your guns and have a transition. Say you do scout 3 rax allin , then know what your response is from 1 rax reaper. The same with cloaked banshees or blue flame hellions. In the end if you do scout the allin coming you will not overreact and instead will build the precise number of bunkers to hold it. At that point you can go and collect your win. Otherwise you are in a comfortable spot with a comfortable timing where you knew your build was going to take you. I agree with KosQ. Try not to overreact. Have a plan.

imBLIND

United States2626 Posts

June 16 2011 23:55 GMT

Watched the first game.

You shouldn't be afraid of cheese...what the hell were you doing.

The towers and good scouting will negate any proxy, while sticking an scv at the bottom of his ramp will tell you if mass marines are coming.

As most diamonds are, you have pretty good mechanics but you have absolute CRAP scouting. You think you can make good decisions based off a single scv that only saw a wall? I don't hesitate to throw an extra scan if my scv does not find a crystal-clear indicator. This goes for every moment in every match-up; active scouting leads to better decision making.

There was a good 2 minute timing from about the 8:00 - 10:00 that you could have abused because he went for faster tanks, no bunkers, and 1rax marine production vs your 3 raxs.
Solution? Scout with an scv.

You then proceed to drop in a really stupid place and you had absolutely no idea about his drop, resulting in a really bad exchange for you. Solution? Smarter building placement and more active scouting outside of your base.

When you actually go engage, you engage based on "oh his army is attacking mine" rather than focusing on the best spot to attack him in. You got lucky at that one engagement before the 12 minute mark at the watchtowers. You weren't so lucky when you decided to tried to waltz in his natural. Solution: stim a marine forward or us a scan.

Afterwards, you turtle some more and then you end up basically forgetting about the side path that he uses. You got there late and out of position, which made you lose more resources than he did and also losing that battle. Solution: better scouting. That way you don't get to any engagements out of position and late.

You then tried a desperation attack in his natural. You got your ass kicked. At that point, you already lost the game and had nothing better to do. Solution: If you had scouted better the entire game, you wouldn't have been in that predicament.

TvT is about who is the better Terran player, not about who is better at the matchup. You scouting led to your loss, your reactions were slow and late, and you were basically snoozing in regard to army movements. Just because tanks are best standing still does not mean they're stuck in a position for 4 minutes.

The idea behind TvT is to scout extremely well and take most of the map without spreading your entire army all over the place. Most TvT's use the fire engine method -- scattered units and buildings and sending the main army at the predicted engagement. You came late to every engagement and paid the price.

Just scout and you'll be fine. If you're worried about your decision making, all you need to know is what the other guy is doing and what is he trying to do. If you had seen him take the side path, you would've instinctly unsieged and went to go stop him. It's only in the higher levels that the mind games start to unravel.

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