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Each player has a limited amount of concentration. Spending this concentration intelligently requires us to weigh the benefits of exerting concentration in one place while sacrificing concentration in another place. The overall effect of these decisions are what gives players their own unique styles, but some decisions are clearly bad.
In all games we know that it is important to make units. We also know that it is important not to squander those units. One might call this a dichotomy between macro and micro, the two fundemental drains on concentration. One cannot play StarCraft with only one of these fundementals, but one can emphasis one over the other, either throughout an enitre game or on a case by case basis.
The point at which this becomes an error and not a stylistic choice is when a player chooses to micro over macroing, and does not obtain a benefit greater than if he had just macroed. This becomes more true as the game progresses and each player takes more expansions. Say, for example, a Zerg has 6 Zerglings and 16 hydralisks. The opponent has a large collection of Zealots and a few dragoons. With good micro the Zerg is able to kill most of the army, but still loses all his hydra. Or maybe he does kill the Protoss zealots, but only survives with 2-3 hydra. However, while he was microing he did not possess the concentration to macro and now has 3 larvae at every hatchery and 800 minerals. Maybe he thinks 'no problem' and uses all those larvae on hydra to get his money down to 400, and builds a random hatch. However, while his hydra are building the second wave of Zealots are already at his base and his hydra morph mid-attack, basically just to die to Zealots and lose the game. This player made a choice to micro instead of macro when it was inappropriate to do so.
Let us assume that the battle against the Zealots is unwinnable without micro. It might feel like a critical time to drop everything and just survive this one attack. However, let's say that without micro the Zerg still kills about half the zealots or so. He loses his hydra, the Protoss has 5 zealots left that are going to be reinforced soon, but thinking he's won something important, he runs to the zerg base to see if he can do damage. But this time, because the Zerg didn't micro and macroed instead, 20 hydras are waiting for him and his zealots get cleaned up easily.
Let's further supposed that instead of spending the time to tediously micro hydralisks, the Zerg just runs them away and macros while the zealots either chase them down or retreat. This act of running away is a little bit of micro, but not enough to destroy the players concentration on his macro. He then joins his army with his newly macroed units and feels safe enough to make a round of drones if the Protoss doesn't attack. A round of drones that might not be possible if the Zerg were worried about trying to build up his tiny army.
That's the basic idea. When do we macro, when do we micro? If we call tactics a sort of subset of micro, what tactics require little concentration but allow us to macro really well. If we set up a flank, is it best to watch the battle and micro it a little while our minerals build up to 1000, or is it better to let the battle occur as it may with the simple flank and to have 1000 minerals worth of units after the battle is over that we can reinforce with? Is our micro actually doing 1000 minerals worth of damage to justify the money build up? Is the position we might gain from a won battle important enough to neglect macro for 20 seconds? These are the questions we must contemplate in macro theory.
Many of us look to the number of minerals we have as the primary indicator of whether or not our macro is good or not. Indeed, it is the first place alarm bells should be going off when it does not look right. However, even if we keeps our minerals low, we do not necessarily have good macro. The following is a list of ways we may not necessarily be keeping our macro in check even if our minerals are low:
We have more than one unit queued In the blitz of StarCraft we sometimes press a key twice when macroing. Those are minerals that could have been units, or they could have been a faster expansion, or an upgrade, or quicker tech.
We have 3 larvae at a hatchery Some Zergs think that because they can build units simultaneously from larvae, it's not as big a deal to let them build up. However, at 3 larvae your hatchery is no longer spawning larvae. Those are larvae that could have been units or drones or anything.
We build a bunch of ultralisk or x-expensive unit Obviously carriers and ultralisks have their purposes, but that purpose must be strategic, rather than to keep your money down. If we have 1500/1500 and suddenly spend it all on ultra so that we have no resources, we are probably building them at a foolish time. What could we have done with that money while it was building up? A faster expansion? Upgrades?
We make drones/scvs/probes, but we don't send them to minerals right away. Mining time is mining time. Every timing we have will be slowed down dramatically by the mining time lost from workers idling after being built. That lost mining time better have been worth it!
We build pylons or overlords way in advance of when we need them Getting supply stuck sucks, but sinking 500 minerals into early overlords, especially in the early game, can be dramatic. Again, if we're building stuff like this ahead of time, it better have a strategic purpose (like blocking vulture harass for pylons) or be worth its price in the concentration we spend elsewhere. I make these reservations because it IS very common for pros to be 30 suppy ahead of where they need to be when they've got 3-4 bases and 100 or so supply in units.
We don't build units as soon as you have the money to. Whether building that drone right when 50 minerals are gathered, or researching that upgrade right when the evo chamber finishes. Getting a drone when we have 80 minerals is the same as lost mining time. Having an evo chamber early is the same as lost mining time.
Basically anytime you are not spending money as we get it Building expos as soon as you have 300 or 400 minerals is extremely important. A slow expo is more or less lost lavae and lost mining time.
Allow me to start with a bold statement: Macro validates Strategy. Strategy is not a replacement for macro. You might have seen me say many times that players should not only focus on mechanics but rather feel free to explore strategies. I said that in a different mindset, however I will still justify it here. Strategy is important to our enjoyment of the game. If we focus on strategy, especially one-base strategy, we will learn a lot. However, we need to be learning at the same time how to macro on that one base strategy so that we execute it as quickly as possible. If our reaver drop comes one minute late because of lost mining time and slow tech due to the various errors listed above, we'll struggle a lot and won't necessarily learn proper StarCraft. Likewise, if we blindly execute FE builds intented to take 3rds and fourths, we might find ourselves overwhelmed by the difficulty of macro. Learn and get used to the interface, then step it up with builds that are more and more challenging to execute in terms of macro.
Second bold statement: Bad macro invalidates strategy. Whether it is our bad macro or our opponent's, the replay and game are meaningless. The timings are off. We cannot apply what happened in a game with bad macro to another game. One, because our and the opponent's poor macro will vary a lot, and two, because many of the timings will not even exist in a properly macroed game (and many others will). The only way we can apply what we learn to other games is if both our and the opponent's macro are very good, nothing is late. That is when we can start making decisions based off what the opponent can have right now, where the opponent's units will be, what tech we have that we can use to judge how far along in tech our opponent is. Bad macro, especially our bad macro, is a guessing game. Good macro provides the consistency and foundation for good strategy.
Most of this is just food for thought. I hope it helps some of you think about the game in a new way. Tsunami once wrote in his 1999ish guide that he did not know how to describe macro and if someone would do it for him. We've learned a lot since then and I hope this has served as a good introductions to the concepts of good macro.
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I should also note that there are many exceptions. Especially midgame TvZ, bio armies are so resilient if you micro them that it can often be worth it to let your minerals build up and queue up units in barracks, since a well microed bio army kills an absurd amount of stuff (and by contrast a poorly microed bio army can be almost useless). Especially when you have the opportunity to kill a hatchery with 8 marines and 2 medics, while you have standing armies all over the map of 20 marines and medics and vessels, that situation the trade off is often worth it. HOWEVER, especially in the early game, little things like making sure you aren't losing mining time and aren't delaying tech is too important to mess up. I would also say that people tend to err more on the side of too much micro when they should be erring on the side of too much macro. Whether you can kill one extra overlord with a wraith is less important that getting everything else in your base running for the midgame in time.
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Feels a little Zerg heavy, but great stuff. I wish I could write that simple and be on the point :/
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The reason why progamers are often times way ahead in supply is primarily because of how scout timings work out. For instance, if your a Protoss and you scout a Terran going for a macro strategy you don't immediately need to produce units past your initial 8 Dragoons and 3 Zealots (Which are necessary incase of a 2 or a 3 factory push off 2 bases). And your third expansion timing isn't safe to start up before your Arbiter tech in most situations, so you can invest your excess minerals in Pylons. This also significantly reduces the Dragoon count you need to fend off Vulture harassment when you finally set up to produce a third expansion, since Pylons effectively act as a wall against Vulture harassment. A good example of this is if you watch a PvT game where the Terran opens with a Barracks CC. Any legitimate Terran user will follow up a Racks CC with siege and then 6 speed Vultures with mines to harass the Protoss third. Any legitimate Protoss will know their Dragoon count will be insufficient to stop this Vulture harassment (6 Dragoons for 2 bases with two more Dragoons about 80% ready) and therefore will focus on Pylon walls rather than building additional Dragoons as a response to the harassment. Despite investing in the Pylon walls, the possible 2 base pushes from the Terran occur late enough to where the Protoss will have a sufficient army count to deal with them. The only exception is a Marine and Tank allin 2 base push followup, but there is no reason why a non professional player should be using this type of build and there are ways for Protoss players to figure out its coming anyways. Against such a build, rather than investing in Pylons if the Protoss invests out of his four Gateways and produces a Reaver, the Protoss should be in a good situation.
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One thing to note:
But when you enter the super late game where micro is pretty much map control, it's probably better to just add a few "macro" rax/facts/hatches/gates. Take a look at Flash's game against Type-B in the EVER osl in particular. No way someone can support 2port 8 rax off 2 bases, but controlling a 150 food MnM army takes a lot of micro, so he ramps up from 6 rax to 8 rax. He actually had enough money to start a third CC iirc.
and just last night: shy vs effort.
Shy had 3k gas banked and needed archons to defend against a huge ultra push. And he just didn't have the gateways to do so.
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On July 09 2012 03:18 Release wrote:
One thing to note:
But when you enter the super late game where micro is pretty much map control, it's probably better to just add a few "macro" rax/facts/hatches/gates. Take a look at Flash's game against Type-B in the EVER osl in particular. No way someone can support 2port 8 rax off 2 bases, but controlling a 150 food MnM army takes a lot of micro, so he ramps up from 6 rax to 8 rax. He actually had enough money to start a third CC iirc.
and just last night: shy vs effort.
Shy had 3k gas banked and needed archons to defend against a huge ultra push. And he just didn't have the gateways to do so.
Without watching that game, I would venture to guess that after upgrades are complete and you already have depots build, you have enough money to support a lot of rax ;p. 8 rax does not sound impossible at all.
It is like when you have 4 gates off 2base pvt... Ya, you can support way more gates than that if all you're making is units, but if you go 4gates you're saying you want to expand and tech.
As far as recent proleague games I wouldn't consider them at all. They have not been playing well.
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This is nice Chef. Especially if you're a new player or a player struggling with macro.
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On July 09 2012 03:36 Chef wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2012 03:18 Release wrote:
One thing to note:
But when you enter the super late game where micro is pretty much map control, it's probably better to just add a few "macro" rax/facts/hatches/gates. Take a look at Flash's game against Type-B in the EVER osl in particular. No way someone can support 2port 8 rax off 2 bases, but controlling a 150 food MnM army takes a lot of micro, so he ramps up from 6 rax to 8 rax. He actually had enough money to start a third CC iirc.
and just last night: shy vs effort.
Shy had 3k gas banked and needed archons to defend against a huge ultra push. And he just didn't have the gateways to do so. Without watching that game, I would venture to guess that after upgrades are complete and you already have depots build, you have enough money to support a lot of rax ;p. 8 rax does not sound impossible at all. It is like when you have 4 gates off 2base pvt... Ya, you can support way more gates than that if all you're making is units, but if you go 4gates you're saying you want to expand and tech. As far as recent proleague games I wouldn't consider them at all. They have not been playing well.
Only people like flash have good macro out of 5+ rax and also to micro the groups of units that come out of it, yea obviously your economy can support.
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On July 09 2012 14:40 Caihead wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2012 03:36 Chef wrote:On July 09 2012 03:18 Release wrote:
One thing to note:
But when you enter the super late game where micro is pretty much map control, it's probably better to just add a few "macro" rax/facts/hatches/gates. Take a look at Flash's game against Type-B in the EVER osl in particular. No way someone can support 2port 8 rax off 2 bases, but controlling a 150 food MnM army takes a lot of micro, so he ramps up from 6 rax to 8 rax. He actually had enough money to start a third CC iirc.
and just last night: shy vs effort.
Shy had 3k gas banked and needed archons to defend against a huge ultra push. And he just didn't have the gateways to do so. Without watching that game, I would venture to guess that after upgrades are complete and you already have depots build, you have enough money to support a lot of rax ;p. 8 rax does not sound impossible at all. It is like when you have 4 gates off 2base pvt... Ya, you can support way more gates than that if all you're making is units, but if you go 4gates you're saying you want to expand and tech. As far as recent proleague games I wouldn't consider them at all. They have not been playing well. Only people like flash have good macro out of 5+ rax and also to micro the groups of units that come out of it, yea obviously your economy can support.
What the? 8 Rax is the perfect amount for SKTerran.
Flash was floating 500 minerals or so and then going back down to 100. Guess how many minerals 8 bio units cost? 400.
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On July 09 2012 14:56 sluggaslamoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2012 14:40 Caihead wrote:On July 09 2012 03:36 Chef wrote:On July 09 2012 03:18 Release wrote:
One thing to note:
But when you enter the super late game where micro is pretty much map control, it's probably better to just add a few "macro" rax/facts/hatches/gates. Take a look at Flash's game against Type-B in the EVER osl in particular. No way someone can support 2port 8 rax off 2 bases, but controlling a 150 food MnM army takes a lot of micro, so he ramps up from 6 rax to 8 rax. He actually had enough money to start a third CC iirc.
and just last night: shy vs effort.
Shy had 3k gas banked and needed archons to defend against a huge ultra push. And he just didn't have the gateways to do so. Without watching that game, I would venture to guess that after upgrades are complete and you already have depots build, you have enough money to support a lot of rax ;p. 8 rax does not sound impossible at all. It is like when you have 4 gates off 2base pvt... Ya, you can support way more gates than that if all you're making is units, but if you go 4gates you're saying you want to expand and tech. As far as recent proleague games I wouldn't consider them at all. They have not been playing well. Only people like flash have good macro out of 5+ rax and also to micro the groups of units that come out of it, yea obviously your economy can support. What the? 8 Rax is the perfect amount for SKTerran. Flash was floating 500 minerals or so and then going back down to 100. Guess how many minerals 8 bio units cost? 400.
>_> my point was that only people like flash can macro out of 5+ rax and micro the groups that come out of it well. You just proved my point, you don't give this advice to beginners.
Well, I'm not on point so don't mind me, I know that it's entirely possible to have 8 rax on 2 base going into 3 and macro continuously out of them, but there a reason why people don't do it any more, it's just too hard to control and there aren't enough benefits to it compared to mech in that stage of the game.
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On July 09 2012 03:18 Release wrote:
One thing to note:
But when you enter the super late game where micro is pretty much map control, it's probably better to just add a few "macro" rax/facts/hatches/gates. Take a look at Flash's game against Type-B in the EVER osl in particular. No way someone can support 2port 8 rax off 2 bases, but controlling a 150 food MnM army takes a lot of micro, so he ramps up from 6 rax to 8 rax. He actually had enough money to start a third CC iirc.
and just last night: shy vs effort.
Shy had 3k gas banked and needed archons to defend against a huge ultra push. And he just didn't have the gateways to do so.
I think you read the game wrong. The reason Flash went 8 rax off two base and took his third later than usual was because he was looking to kill Type-b off 2 base before Type-b hit critical mass with ultras. It was a strategy against Type-b's strategy(crazy zerg/ultra rush). Flash didn't add the extra raxes because he wanted to spend more time microing his units. He added them for a timing attack to have more units than usual to finish the game. You can see it as an all-in because if he failed to kill or cripple Type-b enough, he would be in a bad situation. Also with type-b's composition of units flash really didn't even need to micro except to attack move and stim. Your point to add extra macro raxes in late game to focus more on map control/micro I do agree with, since most people don't have the mechanics to do both at the same time really well but I think that Flash game isn't a good example to illustrate it.
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On July 09 2012 23:14 Caihead wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2012 14:56 sluggaslamoo wrote:On July 09 2012 14:40 Caihead wrote:On July 09 2012 03:36 Chef wrote:On July 09 2012 03:18 Release wrote:
One thing to note:
But when you enter the super late game where micro is pretty much map control, it's probably better to just add a few "macro" rax/facts/hatches/gates. Take a look at Flash's game against Type-B in the EVER osl in particular. No way someone can support 2port 8 rax off 2 bases, but controlling a 150 food MnM army takes a lot of micro, so he ramps up from 6 rax to 8 rax. He actually had enough money to start a third CC iirc.
and just last night: shy vs effort.
Shy had 3k gas banked and needed archons to defend against a huge ultra push. And he just didn't have the gateways to do so. Without watching that game, I would venture to guess that after upgrades are complete and you already have depots build, you have enough money to support a lot of rax ;p. 8 rax does not sound impossible at all. It is like when you have 4 gates off 2base pvt... Ya, you can support way more gates than that if all you're making is units, but if you go 4gates you're saying you want to expand and tech. As far as recent proleague games I wouldn't consider them at all. They have not been playing well. Only people like flash have good macro out of 5+ rax and also to micro the groups of units that come out of it, yea obviously your economy can support. What the? 8 Rax is the perfect amount for SKTerran. Flash was floating 500 minerals or so and then going back down to 100. Guess how many minerals 8 bio units cost? 400. >_> my point was that only people like flash can macro out of 5+ rax and micro the groups that come out of it well. You just proved my point, you don't give this advice to beginners. Well, I'm not on point so don't mind me, I know that it's entirely possible to have 8 rax on 2 base going into 3 and macro continuously out of them, but there a reason why people don't do it any more, it's just too hard to control and there aren't enough benefits to it compared to mech in that stage of the game.
I lazy quoted Release.
On July 10 2012 01:54 Ilikestarcraft wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2012 03:18 Release wrote:
One thing to note:
But when you enter the super late game where micro is pretty much map control, it's probably better to just add a few "macro" rax/facts/hatches/gates. Take a look at Flash's game against Type-B in the EVER osl in particular. No way someone can support 2port 8 rax off 2 bases, but controlling a 150 food MnM army takes a lot of micro, so he ramps up from 6 rax to 8 rax. He actually had enough money to start a third CC iirc.
and just last night: shy vs effort.
Shy had 3k gas banked and needed archons to defend against a huge ultra push. And he just didn't have the gateways to do so. I think you read the game wrong. The reason Flash went 8 rax off two base and took his third later than usual was because he was looking to kill Type-b off 2 base before Type-b hit critical mass with ultras. It was a strategy against Type-b's strategy(crazy zerg/ultra rush). Flash didn't add the extra raxes because he wanted to spend more time microing his units. He added them for a timing attack to have more units than usual to finish the game. You can see it as an all-in because if he failed to kill or cripple Type-b enough, he would be in a bad situation. Also with type-b's composition of units flash really didn't even need to micro except to attack move and stim. Your point to add extra macro raxes in late game to focus more on map control/micro I do agree with, since most people don't have the mechanics to do both at the same time really well but I think that Flash game isn't a good example to illustrate it.
Pretty sure 8 Rax is standard SKTerran. He used it against Jaedong too. Its a mid-game aggressive build because bio doesn't have a lot of muscle late game. Its not an all in, you just stay on 2 base a bit longer for aggression.
SKTerran is strong on maps on open maps with open or flat 3rds.
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What you're saying actually isn't wrong in the situation you're describing but not the situation I was talking about. Flash vs Type-b wasn't the standard tvz. Type-b went crazy zerg/ultra rush that game. In that specific situation, what Flash was doing was almost an all-in. He was trying to end the game. It was not to be aggresive, but a timing attack. His goal was to kill Type-b before Type-b hit critical mass of upgraded ultras. If Flash failed to break Type-b then he would have been in a similar situation when he played Jaedong on Odd-eye where the zerg would be on 4 gas with fully upgraded ultralings and terran would just get started on his third.
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Bisutopia19316 Posts
I definitely have been the victim of sinking money into expensive units to keep my resources low. Marco does become harder at the addition of every new expansion. For me I actually limit my self to a certain number of mining expansions, while I still might make an addition nexus/hatch/cc with spare money I may not defend or mine at it till one of my current 3 bases empties up. This allows me less map to focus on will creating more units. As protoss it is easier to manage what units you buy at anytime in the game, but I do believe those decisions are much harder on a terran or zerg. Gateways ftw.
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On July 10 2012 17:14 sluggaslamoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2012 23:14 Caihead wrote:On July 09 2012 14:56 sluggaslamoo wrote:On July 09 2012 14:40 Caihead wrote:On July 09 2012 03:36 Chef wrote:On July 09 2012 03:18 Release wrote:
One thing to note:
But when you enter the super late game where micro is pretty much map control, it's probably better to just add a few "macro" rax/facts/hatches/gates. Take a look at Flash's game against Type-B in the EVER osl in particular. No way someone can support 2port 8 rax off 2 bases, but controlling a 150 food MnM army takes a lot of micro, so he ramps up from 6 rax to 8 rax. He actually had enough money to start a third CC iirc.
and just last night: shy vs effort.
Shy had 3k gas banked and needed archons to defend against a huge ultra push. And he just didn't have the gateways to do so. Without watching that game, I would venture to guess that after upgrades are complete and you already have depots build, you have enough money to support a lot of rax ;p. 8 rax does not sound impossible at all. It is like when you have 4 gates off 2base pvt... Ya, you can support way more gates than that if all you're making is units, but if you go 4gates you're saying you want to expand and tech. As far as recent proleague games I wouldn't consider them at all. They have not been playing well. Only people like flash have good macro out of 5+ rax and also to micro the groups of units that come out of it, yea obviously your economy can support. What the? 8 Rax is the perfect amount for SKTerran. Flash was floating 500 minerals or so and then going back down to 100. Guess how many minerals 8 bio units cost? 400. >_> my point was that only people like flash can macro out of 5+ rax and micro the groups that come out of it well. You just proved my point, you don't give this advice to beginners. Well, I'm not on point so don't mind me, I know that it's entirely possible to have 8 rax on 2 base going into 3 and macro continuously out of them, but there a reason why people don't do it any more, it's just too hard to control and there aren't enough benefits to it compared to mech in that stage of the game. I lazy quoted Release. Show nested quote +On July 10 2012 01:54 Ilikestarcraft wrote:On July 09 2012 03:18 Release wrote:
One thing to note:
But when you enter the super late game where micro is pretty much map control, it's probably better to just add a few "macro" rax/facts/hatches/gates. Take a look at Flash's game against Type-B in the EVER osl in particular. No way someone can support 2port 8 rax off 2 bases, but controlling a 150 food MnM army takes a lot of micro, so he ramps up from 6 rax to 8 rax. He actually had enough money to start a third CC iirc.
and just last night: shy vs effort.
Shy had 3k gas banked and needed archons to defend against a huge ultra push. And he just didn't have the gateways to do so. I think you read the game wrong. The reason Flash went 8 rax off two base and took his third later than usual was because he was looking to kill Type-b off 2 base before Type-b hit critical mass with ultras. It was a strategy against Type-b's strategy(crazy zerg/ultra rush). Flash didn't add the extra raxes because he wanted to spend more time microing his units. He added them for a timing attack to have more units than usual to finish the game. You can see it as an all-in because if he failed to kill or cripple Type-b enough, he would be in a bad situation. Also with type-b's composition of units flash really didn't even need to micro except to attack move and stim. Your point to add extra macro raxes in late game to focus more on map control/micro I do agree with, since most people don't have the mechanics to do both at the same time really well but I think that Flash game isn't a good example to illustrate it. Pretty sure 8 Rax is standard SKTerran. He used it against Jaedong too. Its a mid-game aggressive build because bio doesn't have a lot of muscle late game. Its not an all in, you just stay on 2 base a bit longer for aggression. SKTerran is strong on maps on open maps with open or flat 3rds.
I remember (at least in the game against JD), every so often the rax will flicker, which is why i say 8rax is "unsupportable" but i see where i was wrong.
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