[G] BW UMS - SCV Football

Hey guys! eS)AnTiGuy here (aka Shalashaska_123). I'll be posting several topics here to shed some light on the SC sport known as SCV football. So, let's get started with the very basics.

In the most commonly played SCV football map (aka SCV Football Tournament 2.3) before the game starts, you already know who you're going to face in the game lobby. 1st player (Red) faces 2nd player (Blue), 3rd player (Teal) faces 4th player (Purple), and so on, and the winner of Red vs Blue plays the winner of Teal vs. Purple and so forth. The game ends obviously when one player remains and every other is defeated; in other words, it's a single elimination tournament.

However, in the newest SCV football map I've come across (SCV Football Final Tournament), there are four arenas, and Red has the option of making it a single elimination or double elimination tournament. For those who don't know: In double elimination, there's a winners bracket and a losers bracket, so you have to be defeated twice to get knocked out of the tournament. The matchups are random, so you don't know who you'll be facing before the game starts.

I'll say more specific things about these maps where appropriate, but for now everything's been said about them in general. I'll be talking next about what to do when the game starts and mechanics.

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For the sake of discussion I'll be referring exclusively to SCV Football Tournament 2.3 from here on out, since Final is basically the same except with four arenas and random matchups. I'll also assume both you and your opponent are males so that the English doesn't get too complicated.

The rules of SCV football are simple: Between you and your opponent, be the first to get 28 points. Each touchdown (that is, when one of your SCV's with the football enters the white zone opposite to where your SCV's spawn) earns you 7 points. Unlike American football, there are no other ways to score points.

Now, on to the game itself. To start off, each player has a flag in the beginning. Get ready to play if your flag is in the middle of the area in the top left. By "get ready," I mean center your screen where your SCV's spawn and make a box wide enough to select all of them when they appear before the timer reaches 0:00. If your SCV's are spawning on the left side of the arena, make the box from left to right; on the other hand, if your SCV's are spawning on the right side of the arena, make the box from right to left. When your SCV's appear at 0:00, select them and send them to the center of the arena where the emitter is (the football) as quickly as possible. It's important to get the ball first because whoever has it will have an opportunity to get a lead in the game. I'll discuss several strategies with opening defensive and offensive plays later.

Throughout the game, your right hand should be on your mouse, and your left hand should be pressing keys on the keyboard (obviously). The only keys you should be pressing throughout the game are the 'a' key (the attack hotkey) and the "shift" key (to select and deselect SCV's) on the left side of the keyboard. Therefore, your middle finger should be resting on the 'a' key, and your ring finger and pinky should be resting on the "shift" key. If it's more comfortable for you, you can alternatively rest your index finger on the 'a' key and your middle and ring finger on the "shift" key. Personally, I'm against the use of hotkeys in this sport because the SCV's die so fast and the assignment of hotkeys takes too much focus away from the game, making it easier to mismicro. Besides, high level play can be acheived without the use of hotkeys, so I don't see any reason for it.

In SCV football, there are many cases (as I'll discuss in later topics) when you want your SCV's to be on "move" only, "attack" only, or "attack on the move". As anyone who plays Brood War knows, right clicking at a location on the map while a group of units is selected will "move" the units to that location (i.e. no attacking). However, pressing the 'a' key and left clicking will make the selected units "attack" (a-move) until the units reach the clicked location. If an SCV on a-move encounters an opponent's unit, it will slow down, get in range of the other unit, and fire. There are times in the game when you want to fire but you don't want your unit to slow down, such as when you're chasing down an opponent's SCV that's trying to make a break for the touchdown zone. This is where "attacking on the move" comes into really good use, which means exactly what it sounds like; an SCV can fire without slowing down, provided you repeatedly a-move (that is, press the 'a' key and left click) in the direction you want the SCV to fire in. The rate at which you a-move is important because if you do it too fast (faster than the firing rate of the SCV), the SCV will not fire at all. Learning how fast you should a-move and in what circumstances you should "attack on the move" will easily come with experience. You can sometimes tell if one of your SCVs has successfully attacked on the move if the rocket boosters on its back are not lit up while it's still moving. In the beginning of the game when you select all your SCV's, you should right-click to the center (move them) instead of a-moving them because it's faster by a small amount of time. Of course, once your SCV's are moving you should a-move them.

This next part is a simple elementary/middle school lesson in geometry, which may seem obvious to all of you, but it's surprising how many people forget this in the heat of battle. Always keep in mind two things: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and in a right-angled triangle, the hypotenuse is shorter than the sum of the other two sides. The second part about the triangle is really an example of the first part, but it's worth keeping in mind. When you're trying to cut off or race an opponent's SCV(s) to some location, it always helps to travel the shortest distance to that location rather than by some longer, curved path.

Okay. All the cards have been laid on the table. Now it's time to learn how to use them: in the next two topics I'll be discussing offensive and defensive strategies to win.

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In this topic I'll be discussing various offensive strategies that have proven effective in my experience playing the game. I've formatted this topic in a question/answer kind of way to simplify the presentation. From now on I'll use the word, "quarterback," to refer to the SCV that has the football.

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THE BLITZ
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Question: What is the Blitz strategy?

Answer: In the beginning, select all 12 SCV's, right-click towards the middle, and a-move them to the center. If you're lucky, your SCVs will kill off all your opponent's SCVs and you'll have about, say, 5 remaining and the football. The Blitz strategy is when you charge straight for the opponent's spawn location with these 5 SCVs (as opposed to going back and regrouping your SCVs) and consequently score a touchdown.

Question: Why is this a good strategy?

Answer: If you kill off all your opponent's SCVs in the middle, he'll only have about 5 SCVs as well when you arrive at his spawn location. 4 of your SCVs will clash with your opponent's 5 SCVs, and the quarterback can safely (or with minimal risk) go for the touchdown zone. These numbers will obviously vary, and, as such, you'll have to adjust your tactics accordingly.

Other thoughts/comments: As I've said before, this strategy depends on luck: it depends on the fact that your SCVs fire before those of your opponent on average. Even though this scenario where you have surplus SCVs after a 12 on 12 fight in the middle doesn't come up too often, it's worth keeping in mind so you can take an advantage when it does. One last thing--this is a very "in-your-face" type of strategy. It can intimidate some opponents (make them feel less confident) but fire up others (kind of like what happens when an aggressive person gets bitch-slapped), so be warned about the psychological consequences.

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THE HERO QUARTERBACK
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At many points in the game there will be clashes between almost-full to full control groups of SCVs. Often times only a few SCVs will survive these encounters. This is where the Hero Quarterback strategy becomes useful.

Question: What is the Hero Quarterback strategy?

Answer: Use 1 SCV (the one with the football) to go from your half of the arena to your opponent's end, making a touchdown, by maneuvering the SCV through opposing SCVs.

Comments: This sounds much easier said than done, and it is. Since you're only using 1 SCV to confront your opponent, attacking his/her SCVs is out of the question; you have to rely on pure micro to get past them.

Question: How does one micro an SCV to get past many others?

Answer: You do what is called juking (deception) and hope your opponent makes a misclick, which is not at all uncommon if you do it correctly. The word, "juking," in this context means to move your SCV one way, making your opponent move his SCVs some way, but then move your SCV in another direction that catches your opponent off guard and gives you a chance to move closer to the touchdown zone.

Here's an example of juking: Suppose you're moving your quarterback towards the touchdown zone along the bottom of the arena (it doesn't matter if your spawn location's on the left or right). Your opponent moves his 12 SCVs, say, directly down to intercept you. You move your SCV directly upward. This, in turn, makes your opponent move all his SCVs up so you can't get by over the top. Half a second after you make your SCV go up, however, you quickly make it go down again and follow the path you were taking originally (travelling along the bottom). The juke is successful if the opponent is too slow to move his SCVs back down again to block your SCV.

Comments: So as you can see, juking relies heavily on the opponent mismicroing his/her SCVs. Obviously you can juke in many different ways from the one explained above; however, if you juke in one way too often, your opponent will likely anticipate your move the next time you do it and not respond the way you want him/her to. If your juking attempts fail, and your opponent pushes your SCV back, don't hesitate to abandon the Hero Quarterback strategy and fall back to your other 11 SCVs for support. One final note--this strategy is best used when the opponent has few SCVs as I've said before. However, some people use it successfully even when the opponent has all 12 SCVs. An advantage to using this strategy when the opponent has all 12 is that if you make a touchdown, then the opponent will not be able to rush you, which is the next strategy to be explained.

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THE RUSH
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Question: What is the Rushing strategy?

Answer: After you make a touchdown, all your SCVs on your opponent's side of the arena will be destroyed or vice-versa if he makes a touchdown. Suppose your opponent comes to your side with the football and all 12 SCVs and makes a touchdown without killing any of your SCVs. All of the opponent's SCVs will be killed when the touchdown is made, so he will have 0 and you'll have 12 at that instant. Rushing takes place when you quickly grab the football and make a run for your opponent's side without giving your opponent time to regroup his SCVs (keep in mind that SCVs spawn at a rate of 1 SCV/second). If the rush is successful, you'll have all 12 of your SCVs when you reach his spawn location, and he'll have only about 6-8 SCVs--a pretty big advantage in your favor, which means you'll likely score a touchdown without too much resistance.

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THE STANDARD ATTACK
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Question: What is the Standard Attack strategy?

Answer: As the name suggests, this is the most common strategy that people use when they play--select all your SCVs, including the quarterback and a-move to the touchdown zone. Then maneuver only quarterback towards the touchdown zone past the opponent's SCVs using your own SCVs as cover. Depending on how well your mechanical skills are, you can a-move your SCVs to strategic spots other than the touchdown zone while maneuvering the quarterback to gain position in the arena. Keep in mind that if you're not using the quarterback to attack, you'll have only 11 SCVs to attack with compared to the opponent's 12. Obviously, this puts you at a disadvantage if you choose to engage your opponent's army, so you need to be a little clever in your micro and juking skills.

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THE WIGGLE TRICK
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Question: What is the Wiggle technique?

Answer: When you're using the Standard Attack, the opponent will undoubtedly send all his SCVs to clash with yours. An effective move to make your opponent's SCVs extremely vulnerable in a battle is this: with your 11 SCVs in front charging in to attack your opponent's SCVs and the quarterback a little bit behind them, move or "wiggle" the quarterback from side to side; that is, make it look like you're going to go past the battle either over or under but don't. If the technique is successful, your opponent will be fooled and "move" his SCVs to try and follow the one with the football. This will make your SCVs kill the opponent's SCVs with ease since SCVs cannot attack when they are on "move."

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THE SLOW PUSH - A VARIATION OF THE STANDARD ATTACK
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Question: What is the Slow Push strategy?

Answer: A little while ago when I was versing sD-zo.Om, he did a very interesting strategy against me that I call the Slow Push. Here's how it works: Move your 11 SCVs forward, the quarterback staying a little bit behind, and keep moving forward until your opponent's SCVs get close at which point you "stop" all 11 of your SCVs in front. Using the Wiggle technique, you can make your opponent play defensively because if the opponent engages your SCVs, he will be at a disadvantage. (Before I continue, note that unless you're attacking on the move, SCVs that are still have an advantage against SCVs on "attack." Also, SCVs only fire in the direction they're facing, so if possible, try and attack a still SCV in the direction opposite to which it faces.) In addition to risking the loss of more SCVs than necessary, if your opponent chooses to engage your SCVs, then you can switch to the Hero Quarterback strategy and make a run for the touchdown zone. If the opponent tries to get at your SCV with the football by flanking from underneath, you can move forward and and above your SCV squad, putting your 11 SCVs between the quarterback and your opponent's SCVs. In other words, if you choose to do this strategy, the opponent will likely play defensively. As a result, you can inch closer and closer to the touchdown zone with your 11 SCVs, stopping when the opponent's SCVs get close and threaten to engage and then continuing to move forward when the opponent backs off again. When you get close to the opponent's spawn location, he will stop playing defensively and do what he can to stop you. As I've mentioned before, the Wiggle technique is very important in the Slow Push. This will make your 11 advancing SCVs very difficult to kill. If possible, try and replenish the SCVs that you do lose so you constantly have 11 in front. It gets harder to keep your opponent in a defensive stance if you don't have many SCVs to cover for your quarterback.

Comments: This strategy requires patience, confidence, and good micro skills. You have to slowly move forward when your opponent backs up enough for you to do so and not back up yourself if you feel threatened.

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THE DELAYED TOUCHDOWN TRICK
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Question: What does it mean to have a Delayed Touchdown?

Answer: Before you make any touchdown, it's a good idea (if possible) to make it at the place it takes your opponent's SCVs the longest amount of time to get to. For example, if you're using the Hero Quarterback strategy and you're heading to the opponent's side of the arena, don't make the touchdown close to his spawn location--make it farther away from that area if you can so your opponent will have to spend more time getting the ball before he starts heading over to your side of the field. This will buy you time to make 1-2 more (possibly crucial) SCVs. Don't go too out of your way though; if you're facing a skilled opponent, then the chance to decide where you want to make your touchdown won't come up too often.

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THE GLITCH
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Question: Are there any glitches that I can take advantage of in the map?

Answer: Yes, there's one special glitch that you should know about. The glitch I'm about to tell you about applies to the SCV Football Tournament 2.3 map; it doesn't seem to work in the Final Tournament map with 4 arenas. I'm not 100% certain of this, however, so you might want to try testing it. If you make a touchdown with your SCV in the top or bottom corner (that is, as high or as low as you can go in the arena) of the touchdown zone, the football will respawn at the middle of the arena--the same spot where it was at the start of the match. I'll leave it to you to think about some offensive strategies that take advantage of this. Please note that the abuse of this glitch is considered bad-mannered play, so don't think about using it too often.

Conclusion: I have discussed the most common offensive strategies and tricks in SCV football. I'm sure there are many others that you'll discover as you gain experience. In the next topic, I'll tell you ways to counter/defend against all the offensive strategies I've talked about.

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The purpose of this topic is to inform you of ways to defend against or counter all the offensive strategies that I talked about in Topic III. I'll go in the same order as I did before, and I'll use the same format to keep things simple.

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COUNTER: THE BLITZ
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Question: How does one counter a Blitz strategy?

Answer: There are two ways to do it. One way is this: At the beginning of the match, if you know your opponent is going to get the football first, keep going towards the center even when you opponent gets the football. As soon as your SCVs are about a centimeter away (or just out of range of getting fired at by opposing SCVs) quickly turn around and head back to your spawn location. Then about 1 to 2 seconds later, a-move back to your opponent's side of the arena. This will make all your SCVs turn around (unexpectedly to your opponent) and engage your opponent's SCVs. At the end of the engagement, you'll be more likely to end up with the football and surviving SCVs than your opponent.

This counterstrategy works because SCVs that attack on the move fire first before those that are only on a-move, as discussed in Topic II. Therefore, a way for the opponent to counter this counterstrategy would be to continually a-move as he moves his SCVs. This would make the outcome mentioned above more unpredictable.

Answer (part 2): Another way to counter the Blitz strategy is as follows: If you see your opponent will get the ball first, continue moving forward towards the middle of the arena and pay attention to which of your opponent's SCVs picks up the ball. If an SCV towards the bottom of his group picks it up, move your group of SCVs slightly more towards the bottom. That way, the probability that one of your SCVs will fire on the quarterback will increase, and you can steal it more easily.

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COUNTER: THE HERO QUARTERBACK
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Question: How do you counter the Hero Quarterback strategy?

Answer: Your goal when defending against someone using this strategy is to not let your opponent get his quarterback past the SCVs you're trying to block him with. To block him successfully and push his SCV back towards his side of the arena, you have to assume he is going to juke you and not move how he wants you to. You must only move where he goes, not move where you think he will go--this is very important. Keep this in mind, and he will never get past you. In other words, anticipation will likely get you in trouble when defending. Obviously, it takes practice to get good at blocking this type of strategy and reading this topic on how to stop it will only take you so far... so practice! Anyway, another good tip to defending against this is to continually shift click (add SCVs to your control group from your spawn location) so you're blocking with 12 SCVs. It's common sense that you have a better chance of warding away his hero quarterback if you have 12 rather than less than 12 SCVs.

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COUNTER: THE RUSH
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Question: How do you defend against someone who attempts to rush you?

Answer: For one thing, you shouldn't make a touchdown with all 12 SCVs without killing any of your opponent's SCVs. If you do this, you're just asking to be rushed. In the event where you have very few (like 1-2) SCVs and the opponent has 12 and the football and is heading to your side, you need to send all the SCVs you have to delay his SCVs from moving forward. By delay, I don't mean engage the opponent's SCVs because you'll lose your SCVs without slowing him down much; what you need to do with these few SCVs you have is look for a way to threaten the opponent's quarterback so that he'll hesitate from moving forward. At the same time, you need to continually add more SCVs to your control group from your spawn location using shift-clicks. If you can keep the opponent from moving forward for several seconds, then you'll have succeeded in fending off the rush because you'll have enough SCVs (close to 12) to battle the opponent's SCVs. With only about 6 SCVs, it takes good control, takes some creativity, and is very difficult to intimidate a group of 12 SCVs; practice will help you get better at this.

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COUNTER: THE STANDARD ATTACK
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Question: How does one counter the Standard Attack?

Answer: If both you and your opponent have 12 SCVs, you should try to engage the opponent as close to his side as possible. That way if he manages to win and move forward from the encounter, you'll have time to regroup and get your units in position, but if you win and steal the football, you'll be close enough to apply pressure before the opponent has time to recollect his forces. Other than that, when you're on defense in general, you should always keep an eye on the SCV with the football: you should know where it is at all times and watch if and when it tries to make a break for the touchdown zone while your SCVs and your opponent's SCVs are engaged. When the quarterback does make a break for it, you should stop battling the opponent's other SCVs, select your SCVs at you spawn location and do everything you can to cut off the quarterback's advance. Be careful that you don't fall for the Wiggle trick, though, as your opponent will punish you for your paranoia by killing all the SCVs you're moving.

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COUNTER: THE SLOW PUSH - A VARIATION OF THE STANDARD ATTACK
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Question: How do you counter the Slow Push strategy?

Answer: One effective way I've find to counter this strategy is to send about 3 SCVs past the opponent's slowly advancing forces and to come at the quarterback from behind while your other 9 SCVs go at it from the front, essentially sandwiching the SCV with the football. Try and pull off this strategy as far from your spawn location as possible because if you do this when your opponent is very close to the touchdown zone, he'll see what you're trying to do and convert to the Standard Attack strategy. His 11 SCVs have a higher chance of overpowering your 9 SCVs, so try and be subtle if you can. This obviously takes quite a bit of skill to pull off because you're controlling two groups of SCVs: the 9 slowing your opponent's advance and the 3 going behind enemy lines.

All right. We've finished our discussion of strategy. Let's rap this tutorial up with a discussion of good and bad manners before I say my goodbyes.

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If you've read the last 3 topics, you already know just about everything there is to know about the game. The purpose of this topic is to inform people what distinguishes good manner (GM) play from bad manner (BM) play. To keep things simple, I'll make two lists starting with bad mannered play.

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Bad Manner Play
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-Saying "gg" before the final touchdown.

-Starting unfriendly trash talk.

-Abusing the glitch talked about in Topic III.

-Moving a group of SCVs to your opponent's spawn location and killing their SCVs as they appear for an extended amount of time.

-Taking the Hero Quarterback strategy too far by not scoring a touchdown when the opportunity arises and needlessly maneuvering around the opponent's SCVs.

-Doing the previous two together is ESPECIALLY BM.

-Doing all of these together is COMPLETELY BM--as BM as one could possibly get!

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Good Manner Play
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-Saying "gl" or "gg" before the match starts.

-Saying "gg" after either you or your opponent reaches 28 points.

-Play at your best unless you're playing a newbie in which case you should go easy. By "go easy," I mean let him score a few touchdowns so he has fun too. A very good mannered person would let the newbie win after playing a "hard fought" match, but this is entirely optional. This type of behavior helps bring new people into the community.

-Have good sportsmanship at all times.

-Don't do any of the things in the Bad Manner Play list.

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Final Remarks: I'd like to thank you, the reader, who read everything up until now. It was very tedious to write, edit, and think about the best way to explain some things, but I hope it was enjoyable for you. If you've learned something new from the topics I've written, then I'm happy my goal's been fulfilled. If anyone feels the need to amend or explain in more depth something that wasn't stressed enough, feel free to add a Topic VI and so on. Learning everything in this tutorial is only the first step to becoming an expert at SCV Football. What comes now is to practice these strategies against many opponents. Practice, practice, practice, find tougher opponents, and above all else, have fun. I hope to have an intense, epic match with you some day.

Signing off now,

Shalashaska_123

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Use the F2, F3, and F4 keys to your advantage. Pressing one of these keys will center your screen to a particular spot on the map. Hold the Shift key and press one of the F-keys to assign the current screen location to that key. What I like to do is assign the F2 key to the left side of the arena, the F3 key to the middle of the arena, and the F4 key to the right side of the arena. That way I can quickly move SCVs from the spawn location to the middle or to the opponent's side or vice-versa.

It is actually useful to hotkey the quarterback. Doing so can allow you to play more efficiently. With the quarterback selected, hold the Ctrl key and press 1. For example, assuming your SCVs spawn on the left, press F2, select the newly spawned SCVs, press F3, right-click to move the SCVs to the middle, and press 1 to regain control of the quarterback.

People no longer play on SCV Football Tournament 2.3 because the glitch where the football
respawns at the center was being abused to no end. The Final Tournament map doesn't have this issue, and it's become the standard map to play on.

Also, forget what I said about being good-mannered. Being BM is more fun.

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