thelok Profile Joined August 2010 31 Posts Last Edited: 2010-09-24 22:17:28 #1



I have seen many threads recently with topics such as: "Why did I lose with X build?" or "I lost because of X unit, how to counter?". In these threads people indicate a general scenario where they have some set of units, say 20 marauders, 15 marines, and they get splattered by mass marauder/tanks, "how do I counter this?" That's fine, maybe they are new to the game and really don't know what is the counter to tanks or maybe it actually is a complex problem.



But there are those that assume their opponent plays like trash, has horrible micro, has units idling and get angry when they lose to these bad players. In my opinion the bad players are those that get angry that their build loses and try to reason that they should never be losing to these players since the opponents theoretically suck. "My build wins 80% of the time! I shouldn't have lost to this noob!"



I don't think players understand that there is a pro and con to EVERYTHING you do in SC. For instance, a simple example:



6 pool:



Pros: Early units, counter to opponent early attacks, forces opponent to get units



Cons: Cripples economy, weak against walls or small chokes, etc.



Now how many times have you as a player ever thought about the CONS? When you make that gateway at 11, and pump out a stalker at 14, have you considered why you may lose? Again, there is a pro/con to this action. People obviously play to win, not play to lose. As many before me have already said, you learn much more from your losses than your wins.



Similar to pros/cons is risk/reward. A zerg could risk going for 15 hatch, 15 pool.



Pro/Reward: Can have awesome economy/unit producing capability if successful.



Con/Risk: Extremely vulnerable to early rushes.



Now before you bring up discussions about why you lost, I don't think you should bring up a discussion if your basic gameplay mechanics are flawed. You as a player will need to work on mechanics before bringing up any strategy discussion. Day9 does a great job about bringing up the ideas that you should always be producing from your structures (e.g. barracks, gateways). It also means constantly pumping out workers to mine more minerals, making sure units are not idle, expanding to get more minerals, etc. All these ideas are really the "macro mode" that players need to understand. You need to get armies efficiently to kill the other player, duh.



So in order to understand why you lose, here is my list of what you should consider in why you lost, in order of importance:



1) Bad gameplay mechanics (aka macro mode).

2) Lack of understanding gameplay/decision pros/cons.

3) Lack of understanding of pro/con/counters/abilities of units (marauders counter roaches, mutas counter marauders, blink stalkers counter mutas, etc)

4) Other miscellaneous things (micro, low apm, scouting)



This is the most helpful piece of advice I can give: It's that if you lose, then it's YOUR fault. It's not because of what the opponent did. It's because of what you did... or maybe what you did NOT do. There is a pro/con to everything you do. SC is a balanced game. There is a counter to EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING. If it there is a strategy that is not balanced then Blizzard will eventually patch it.



1) Bad gameplay mechanics (aka macro mode).: First you absolutely have to understand the fundamental gameplay mechanics. Just because you're able to build a gateway at 11 doesn't mean you can claim "I built my gateway before my opponent even began his gateway, I was waaaaaaayyyy ahead but I still lost". Maybe you were able to build a gateway at 11 because you sacrificed something. Again, a pro and con.



You may be able to get a gateway fast at 11, but you probably sacrificed unused worker production time. Having 10 probes but having 2 probes be idle is effectively the same as having 8 probes, (excluding things like scouting).



Assume your 3 gateways have not been producing for the longest time and you have 800 minerals, when your opponent attacks your base you lose -- maybe even 5 extra zealots would have turned around the battle and saved you if only you had remembered to make units, but because you didn't maximize production at your gateways your army wasn't as big as it could have been.



Learn to be efficient. Macro.



2) Lack of understanding gameplay/decision pros/cons.: Do you really need 5 gateways? How can I lose if I make this robotics facility now? My opponent is fast expanding, what can I do to counter this? Is it safe for me to expand too? Again, everything you or your opponent does has a pro and a con. Do you understand why you are doing X and Y at this point in time? Understand the pros/cons of your decisions when spending money.



3) You need to study and understand unit strengths/weaknesses. Marauders dominate ground armored units but suck ass against air. Lings are great for chasing down stalkers but don't do well in choke points due to being melee units. High templars are great versus bioballs but are vulnerable to any units that get within striking distance.



There is a counter to every unit in the game. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.



What's the counter to mass marine/marauder? As a zerg, having ling/banelings can destroy the marines, mutas can clean up the remaining marines and the marauders are defenseless. Zerg will have lost all their ling/banelings as a con, but as a pro, mutas will have the ability to get free attacks on marauders granted all the marines are dead. Marines are weak to lings/banelings that get into striking distance. And again, marauders are great ground units with their HP and range, but they suck ass against air.



So then what is so important about unit composition? Well, it closes some weaknesses. Consider what would happen if instead of 10 marine and 10 marauders, a player gets 0 marines and 18 marauders. The ground army is now stronger against armored units, but the anti-air is now non-existent. Pro/Con. 25 marines and 0 marauders will destroy mutas since marines can hit air and do great damage against light units but have low HP and do not work well against armored units. Unit composition can also reinforce your army. For example, Medivacs obviously work well with a bioball army but not as well with a mechanical army.



There's great resources to help you get information about individual units (damage, health, pros, cons, strategies) such as



4) Other miscellaneous things: This piece is really the "technique" that players have. Micro ability, APM, scouting, etc. Once players have a grasp of #1/#2/#3 from above then they are "equal" in terms of SC skill/knowledge. These are the minor things that make the good players stand out because even minor techniques become large factors in a battle/game. To learn this piece I think it really has to do with experience and time. Your APM will eventually go up over time as you are more familiar on what to do in the game and have established plans. Practice the micro so you get the motions down. Get opponent information via scouting so you can apply #2 and #3 effectively.



As an example, I can play like the great zerg Idra. I can download his replays and I can copy his build exactly! If Idra and I were in a 1v1, we can do the same build but Idra's high level attention to detail, APM, scouting, micro and numerous other factors as a player will end up destroying me even if we both have the same initial build.



To end, please know the pros/cons to everything you and your opponent do in SC. Then you will know why you lose... or even win. This thread is not rage. It is merely to help new players understand generally about why they are losing so they don't need to post 50 future topics about why they lose against a certain build. "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."I have seen many threads recently with topics such as: "Why did I lose with X build?" or "I lost because of X unit, how to counter?". In these threads people indicate a general scenario where they have some set of units, say 20 marauders, 15 marines, and they get splattered by mass marauder/tanks, "how do I counter this?" That's fine, maybe they are new to the game and really don't know what is the counter to tanks or maybe it actually is a complex problem.But there are those that assume their opponent plays like trash, has horrible micro, has units idling and get angry when they lose to these bad players. In my opinion the bad players are those that get angry that their build loses and try to reason that they should never be losing to these players since the opponents theoretically suck. "My build wins 80% of the time! I shouldn't have lost to this noob!"I don't think players understand that there is a pro and con to EVERYTHING you do in SC. For instance, a simple example:6 pool:Pros: Early units, counter to opponent early attacks, forces opponent to get unitsCons: Cripples economy, weak against walls or small chokes, etc.Now how many times have you as a player ever thought about the CONS? When you make that gateway at 11, and pump out a stalker at 14, have you considered why you may lose? Again, there is a pro/con to this action. People obviously play to win, not play to lose. As many before me have already said, you learn much more from your losses than your wins.Similar to pros/cons is risk/reward. A zerg could risk going for 15 hatch, 15 pool.Pro/Reward: Can have awesome economy/unit producing capability if successful.Con/Risk: Extremely vulnerable to early rushes.Now before you bring up discussions about why you lost, I don't think you should bring up a discussion if your basic gameplay mechanics are flawed. You as a player will need to work on mechanics before bringing up any strategy discussion. Day9 does a great job about bringing up the ideas that you should always be producing from your structures (e.g. barracks, gateways). It also means constantly pumping out workers to mine more minerals, making sure units are not idle, expanding to get more minerals, etc. All these ideas are really the "macro mode" that players need to understand. You need to get armies efficiently to kill the other player, duh.So in order to understand why you lose, here is my list of what you should consider in why you lost, in order of importance:1) Bad gameplay mechanics (aka macro mode).2) Lack of understanding gameplay/decision pros/cons.3) Lack of understanding of pro/con/counters/abilities of units (marauders counter roaches, mutas counter marauders, blink stalkers counter mutas, etc)4) Other miscellaneous things (micro, low apm, scouting)This is the most helpful piece of advice I can give: It's that if you lose, then it's YOUR fault. It's not because of what the opponent did. It's because of what you did... or maybe what you did NOT do. There is a pro/con to everything you do. SC is a balanced game. There is a counter to EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING. If it there is a strategy that is not balanced then Blizzard will eventually patch it.1) Bad gameplay mechanics (aka macro mode).: First you absolutely have to understand the fundamental gameplay mechanics. Just because you're able to build a gateway at 11 doesn't mean you can claim "I built my gateway before my opponent even began his gateway, I was waaaaaaayyyy ahead but I still lost". Maybe you were able to build a gateway at 11 because you sacrificed something. Again, a pro and con.You may be able to get a gateway fast at 11, but you probably sacrificed unused worker production time. Having 10 probes but having 2 probes be idle is effectively the same as having 8 probes, (excluding things like scouting).Assume your 3 gateways have not been producing for the longest time and you have 800 minerals, when your opponent attacks your base you lose -- maybe even 5 extra zealots would have turned around the battle and saved you if only you had remembered to make units, but because you didn't maximize production at your gateways your army wasn't as big as it could have been.Learn to be efficient. Macro.2) Lack of understanding gameplay/decision pros/cons.: Do you really need 5 gateways? How can I lose if I make this robotics facility now? My opponent is fast expanding, what can I do to counter this? Is it safe for me to expand too? Again, everything you or your opponent does has a pro and a con. Do you understand why you are doing X and Y at this point in time? Understand the pros/cons of your decisions when spending money.3) You need to study and understand unit strengths/weaknesses. Marauders dominate ground armored units but suck ass against air. Lings are great for chasing down stalkers but don't do well in choke points due to being melee units. High templars are great versus bioballs but are vulnerable to any units that get within striking distance.There is a counter to every unit in the game. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.What's the counter to mass marine/marauder? As a zerg, having ling/banelings can destroy the marines, mutas can clean up the remaining marines and the marauders are defenseless. Zerg will have lost all their ling/banelings as a con, but as a pro, mutas will have the ability to get free attacks on marauders granted all the marines are dead. Marines are weak to lings/banelings that get into striking distance. And again, marauders are great ground units with their HP and range, but they suck ass against air.So then what is so important about unit composition? Well, it closes some weaknesses. Consider what would happen if instead of 10 marine and 10 marauders, a player gets 0 marines and 18 marauders. The ground army is now stronger against armored units, but the anti-air is now non-existent. Pro/Con. 25 marines and 0 marauders will destroy mutas since marines can hit air and do great damage against light units but have low HP and do not work well against armored units. Unit composition can also reinforce your army. For example, Medivacs obviously work well with a bioball army but not as well with a mechanical army.There's great resources to help you get information about individual units (damage, health, pros, cons, strategies) such as Liquipedia 4) Other miscellaneous things: This piece is really the "technique" that players have. Micro ability, APM, scouting, etc. Once players have a grasp of #1/#2/#3 from above then they are "equal" in terms of SC skill/knowledge. These are the minor things that make the good players stand out because even minor techniques become large factors in a battle/game. To learn this piece I think it really has to do with experience and time. Your APM will eventually go up over time as you are more familiar on what to do in the game and have established plans. Practice the micro so you get the motions down. Get opponent information via scouting so you can apply #2 and #3 effectively.As an example, I can play like the great zerg Idra. I can download his replays and I can copy his build exactly! If Idra and I were in a 1v1, we can do the same build but Idra's high level attention to detail, APM, scouting, micro and numerous other factors as a player will end up destroying me even if we both have the same initial build.To end, please know the pros/cons to everything you and your opponent do in SC. Then you will know why you lose... or even win. SCRAAAAAWWWWW

MaxField Profile Blog Joined May 2010 United States 2385 Posts #2 Wow, this is a great and well thought out post! "Zerg, so bad it loses to hydras" IdrA.

Panoptic Profile Joined September 2009 United Kingdom 515 Posts #3 Gotta agree, good post. So many players lose just because their mechanics are bad, this is the major factor in my opinion. But all of your other points are valid I think.



Part of me thinks this thread or part of it should be stickied or maybe inserted into the strat forum guidelines, it could save a lot of needless 'why did I lose?' threads. "Crom laughs at your four winds!"

Jayrod Profile Joined August 2010 1815 Posts #4 Good read. I think a noob could read this rather than listen to several hours of day 9 and come away with the same benefit.



To expand on point 1, I think people should be sure not to forget the later harm that the earlier decisions do. For instance the 11 gate has a subtle drawback of wasting a chronoboost on 10 because you cant get 150 minerals for the gate AND the 50 for the next probe to gate at 11 efficiently. People need to be able to consider, yea I got my gate 20 seconds earlier, but wasted 15 seconds of my chronoboost to do it and cut probes for several seconds, which dominos. Maybe then they will consider the idea of chronoboosting that probe after the gateways dropped to get the full chronoboost out of the nexus.



It seems small, but its what makes the difference between good and bad play

Black Gun Profile Blog Joined July 2009 Germany 4482 Posts #5



i want to add one more information: something newbs should consider is that certain units or tactics require more control than others and are thus maybe not suited for every1. the most obvious example are void rays. without decent micro and constant focus on them, they suck ass. yet especially the gold noobs i play against (coz im a gold noob myself ) tend to often use them, and fail because of them.



great post.i want to add one more information: something newbs should consider is that certain units or tactics require more control than others and are thus maybe not suited for every1. the most obvious example are void rays. without decent micro and constant focus on them, they suck ass. yet especially the gold noobs i play against (coz im a gold noob myself) tend to often use them, and fail because of them. "What am I supposed to do against this?" - "Lose!" :-]

AirbladeOrange Profile Blog Joined June 2010 United States 2368 Posts #6 Good stuff here. Sometimes it's easy to get mad at a new poster/lower level player for starting a new thread just asking why they lost a game or how to counter a certain build or composition of units. But we need to just keep pointing them to the right places like the posting guidelines and Liquipedia. How about a comprehensive guide to newbie mistakes? Make it a Liquipedia thing maybe?

Crushgroove Profile Joined July 2010 United States 788 Posts #7 Some of the lower level players should read this before posting. [In Korea on Vaca] "Why would I go to the park and climb a mountain? There are video games on f*cking TV!" - Kazuke

thelok Profile Joined August 2010 31 Posts #8 Thanks for the comments. Maybe day9 should do dailies on all of these topics. Then when he goes on vacation he can put a link on his ustream to these topics.



Yeah I'm talking to you day9 you lurker! SCRAAAAAWWWWW

Twist-O-Fate Profile Joined May 2010 Canada 38 Posts #9 On September 25 2010 05:28 Black Gun wrote:

great post.



i want to add one more information: something newbs should consider is that certain units or tactics require more control than others and are thus maybe not suited for every1. the most obvious example are void rays. without decent micro and constant focus on them, they suck ass. yet especially the gold noobs i play against (coz im a gold noob myself ) tend to often use them, and fail because of them.



great post.i want to add one more information: something newbs should consider is that certain units or tactics require more control than others and are thus maybe not suited for every1. the most obvious example are void rays. without decent micro and constant focus on them, they suck ass. yet especially the gold noobs i play against (coz im a gold noob myself) tend to often use them, and fail because of them.





Yah but they got to gold to begin with by using Voidrays so...try to tell someone they shouldnt use a unit when the only success they ever had was from this unit...good luck. Also, do ANY gold players micro at all? Yah but they got to gold to begin with by using Voidrays so...try to tell someone they shouldnt use a unit when the only success they ever had was from this unit...good luck. Also, do ANY gold players micro at all? Read not to contradict and to confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

Panoptic Profile Joined September 2009 United Kingdom 515 Posts #10 On September 25 2010 07:24 Twist-O-Fate wrote:

Show nested quote +

On September 25 2010 05:28 Black Gun wrote:

great post.



i want to add one more information: something newbs should consider is that certain units or tactics require more control than others and are thus maybe not suited for every1. the most obvious example are void rays. without decent micro and constant focus on them, they suck ass. yet especially the gold noobs i play against (coz im a gold noob myself ) tend to often use them, and fail because of them.



great post.i want to add one more information: something newbs should consider is that certain units or tactics require more control than others and are thus maybe not suited for every1. the most obvious example are void rays. without decent micro and constant focus on them, they suck ass. yet especially the gold noobs i play against (coz im a gold noob myself) tend to often use them, and fail because of them.





Yah but they got to gold to begin with by using Voidrays so...try to tell someone they shouldnt use a unit when the only success they ever had was from this unit...good luck. Also, do ANY gold players micro at all? Yah but they got to gold to begin with by using Voidrays so...try to tell someone they shouldnt use a unit when the only success they ever had was from this unit...good luck. Also, do ANY gold players micro at all?



Possibly. They might micro too much and macro hardly at all, I know that's what my bro used to do when he started playing, just because he found it more fun than base management. Possibly. They might micro too much and macro hardly at all, I know that's what my bro used to do when he started playing, just because he found it more fun than base management. "Crom laughs at your four winds!"

thelok Profile Joined August 2010 31 Posts Last Edited: 2010-09-24 22:32:51 #11 On September 25 2010 07:24 Twist-O-Fate wrote:

Show nested quote +

On September 25 2010 05:28 Black Gun wrote:

great post.



i want to add one more information: something newbs should consider is that certain units or tactics require more control than others and are thus maybe not suited for every1. the most obvious example are void rays. without decent micro and constant focus on them, they suck ass. yet especially the gold noobs i play against (coz im a gold noob myself ) tend to often use them, and fail because of them.



great post.i want to add one more information: something newbs should consider is that certain units or tactics require more control than others and are thus maybe not suited for every1. the most obvious example are void rays. without decent micro and constant focus on them, they suck ass. yet especially the gold noobs i play against (coz im a gold noob myself) tend to often use them, and fail because of them.





Yah but they got to gold to begin with by using Voidrays so...try to tell someone they shouldnt use a unit when the only success they ever had was from this unit...good luck. Also, do ANY gold players micro at all? Yah but they got to gold to begin with by using Voidrays so...try to tell someone they shouldnt use a unit when the only success they ever had was from this unit...good luck. Also, do ANY gold players micro at all?



I would say it is more likely that a gold level player will try to concentrate on micro and forget to macro.



It is hard to tell a player to deviate from the strategy they have always used. But if they don't then they'll be staying in the gold league for a while... well unless you're doing 4 gate =) I would say it is more likely that a gold level player will try to concentrate on micro and forget to macro.It is hard to tell a player to deviate from the strategy they have always used. But if they don't then they'll be staying in the gold league for a while... well unless you're doing 4 gate =) SCRAAAAAWWWWW

Black Gun Profile Blog Joined July 2009 Germany 4482 Posts Last Edited: 2010-09-24 22:38:28 #12 On September 25 2010 07:24 Twist-O-Fate wrote:

Show nested quote +

On September 25 2010 05:28 Black Gun wrote:

great post.



i want to add one more information: something newbs should consider is that certain units or tactics require more control than others and are thus maybe not suited for every1. the most obvious example are void rays. without decent micro and constant focus on them, they suck ass. yet especially the gold noobs i play against (coz im a gold noob myself ) tend to often use them, and fail because of them.



great post.i want to add one more information: something newbs should consider is that certain units or tactics require more control than others and are thus maybe not suited for every1. the most obvious example are void rays. without decent micro and constant focus on them, they suck ass. yet especially the gold noobs i play against (coz im a gold noob myself) tend to often use them, and fail because of them.





Yah but they got to gold to begin with by using Voidrays so...try to tell someone they shouldnt use a unit when the only success they ever had was from this unit...good luck. Also, do ANY gold players micro at all? Yah but they got to gold to begin with by using Voidrays so...try to tell someone they shouldnt use a unit when the only success they ever had was from this unit...good luck. Also, do ANY gold players micro at all?





i dont know, havent played against gold in several days. only playing platinum, but still staying in gold myself. and its not like im missing losses so the system cant rate me



but to answer ur question: no, they dont micro their void rays. although i gotta admit its kinda impossible to micro single vrs against stimmed marines in their own (P) base.



but i also should mention that my standard build gets stim and can produce lots of marines quickly, so maybe im simply less vulnerable to vrs than many others. but i think somewhere in platinum the level is reached where vrs dont win u games anymore just by the power of surprise, so decent micro is needed to put them to good use. ppl who only reach gold or platinum coz they caught their opponents by surprise with vrs inevitably are gonna reach a skill plateau because they necessarily lack the micro and multitask to pull off pro vr play. i dont know, havent played against gold in several days. only playing platinum, but still staying in gold myself. and its not like im missing losses so the system cant rate mebut to answer ur question: no, they dont micro their void rays. although i gotta admit its kinda impossible to micro single vrs against stimmed marines in their own (P) base.but i also should mention that my standard build gets stim and can produce lots of marines quickly, so maybe im simply less vulnerable to vrs than many others. but i think somewhere in platinum the level is reached where vrs dont win u games anymore just by the power of surprise, so decent micro is needed to put them to good use. ppl who only reach gold or platinum coz they caught their opponents by surprise with vrs inevitably are gonna reach a skill plateau because they necessarily lack the micro and multitask to pull off pro vr play. "What am I supposed to do against this?" - "Lose!" :-]

IntenseZ Profile Joined September 2010 Belgium 34 Posts #13 On September 25 2010 07:24 Twist-O-Fate wrote:

Yah but they got to gold to begin with by using Voidrays so...try to tell someone they shouldnt use a unit when the only success they ever had was from this unit...good luck. Also, do ANY gold players micro at all?



I'm Silver, I don't know why I can't get away from their =/

But I play against gold & platinum, and, ...

The 4/5 golds ONLY do void ray rushes, proxy rax, proxy 2 gates, mass carriers ...



And that is so freaking raging to loose to that, or even to win.

I mean, what is the purpose tu play a game of 5min, where, if I spot your cheese I win and if I don't, you win...

The most raging are the mass carriers, I train my macro like crazy, but I don't have the ability yet to " calculate " how much of each unit he can do on one or two bases ...

And sometimes I loose because of that.



On one side, it is good, cause when I finally will be on higher leagues, I will be " immune " to cheese and crazy stuff like mass carriers, but it is difficult to enjoy games when it is always the same shit, always 10min games.



And finally, when their is a normal game, with skill involved (cause for those cheesy builds, the only skill involved, is my micro... and it isn't so great), than it is great to win, or loose. I'm Silver, I don't know why I can't get away from their =/But I play against gold & platinum, and, ...The 4/5 golds ONLY do void ray rushes, proxy rax, proxy 2 gates, mass carriers ...And that is so freaking raging to loose to that, or even to win.I mean, what is the purpose tu play a game of 5min, where, if I spot your cheese I win and if I don't, you win...The most raging are the mass carriers, I train my macro like crazy, but I don't have the ability yet to " calculate " how much of each unit he can do on one or two bases ...And sometimes I loose because of that.On one side, it is good, cause when I finally will be on higher leagues, I will be " immune " to cheese and crazy stuff like mass carriers, but it is difficult to enjoy games when it is always the same shit, always 10min games.And finally, when their is a normal game, with skill involved (cause for those cheesy builds, the only skill involved, is my micro... and it isn't so great), than it is great to win, or loose.

bakedlama Profile Joined September 2010 Canada 2 Posts #14



"A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win."



The silver-league players who complain about balance are obviously scrubs. I don't mean to offend those above me, but unless it is known to be a bug, there is no such thing as cheese. There are only high-risk all-in tactics. Another quote about scrubs:



"Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is a tactic close to my heart that often elicits the call of the scrub. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can’t counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn’t I be a fool for not using that move?"



When you and I learn to counter 'cheese' we will rack up wins by countering these high-risk tactics. I'm certain of it. That's how competitive games work. At a certain level these tactics become far less viable, and those of us who spent our time practicing the game's fundamentals rather than expensive all-in tactics will have an advantage over those who only know how to 6-pool etc.. For that reason a thread like this is extremely helpful. Your objective should be to spot and counter 'cheese' every time and then win with superior fundamentals. Then you will be ready to compete against other players with similarly strong fundamentals, who do not sacrifice any hope of a solid mid-game by trying to win within the first five minutes.



That said, even the highest-level players try to 'cheese' now and then. Why? Because if you can catch your opponent off-guard and surprise them, you can win. That's the only reason; it has nothing to do with honour. I've seen several games like this in the GSL. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it crashes and burns. There is no reason to be angry about it.



Don't come here and whine about your losses.

This type of thread is great. I'm new to StarCraft (while I've been lurking here since SC2 came out, this is my first post) and am proud to have the common sense not to blame my opponents for my losses. The quote I just put in my profile while registering comes from Sirlin's book Play to Win:"A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win."The silver-league players who complain about balance are obviously scrubs. I don't mean to offend those above me, but unless it is known to be a bug, there is no such thing as cheese. There are only high-risk all-in tactics. Another quote about scrubs:"Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is a tactic close to my heart that often elicits the call of the scrub. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can’t counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn’t I be a fool for not using that move?"When you and I learn to counter 'cheese' we will rack up wins by countering these high-risk tactics. I'm certain of it. That's how competitive games work. At a certain level these tactics become far less viable, and those of us who spent our time practicing the game's fundamentals rather than expensive all-in tactics will have an advantage over those who only know how to 6-pool etc.. For that reason a thread like this is extremely helpful. Your objective should be to spot and counter 'cheese'and then win with superior fundamentals. Then you will be ready to compete against other players with similarly strong fundamentals, who do not sacrifice any hope of a solid mid-game by trying to win within the first five minutes.That said, even the highest-level players try to 'cheese' now and then. Why? Because if you can catch your opponent off-guard and surprise them, you can win. That's the only reason; it has nothing to do with honour. I've seen several games like this in the GSL. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it crashes and burns. There is no reason to be angry about it.Don't come here and whine about your losses. Play to win. A scrub is a player who is handicapped by self-imposed rules that the game knows nothing about. A scrub does not play to win.

thelok Profile Joined August 2010 31 Posts #15 ^ truthiness, totally agree SCRAAAAAWWWWW

KiLL_ORdeR Profile Blog Joined June 2009 United States 1483 Posts #16 Man this thread really should be stickied.



I don't hit the strategy forum that much, but I used to go to the BW strat forum daily and there were a few threads like this, so I guess I just naturally assumed that there was something like this on the SC2 Strategy forum. Alas, there isn't, which may be the cause for a lot of the crappy posts on the strat forum nowadays.



This seems like such an obvious concept to me, and i've only been really playing RTS since like December, but I guess people who are new to RTS, or haven't really put much thought into it really don't get it. I really hope that the mods take a look at this and make it a recommended thread, and maybe you should think about putting it in Liquipedia. GW! In order to move forward, we must rid ourselves of that which holds us back. Check out my stream and give me tips! twitch.tv/intotheskyy

thelok Profile Joined August 2010 31 Posts #17 bump SCRAAAAAWWWWW

Snowfield Profile Blog Joined April 2010 1285 Posts #18 90% of why people lose is because of mad mechanics / multitasking, 90% of these players think that their BO is bad. I think those numbers are roughly right lol.



The answer to "Why did i lose?" is always "Because the other guy played better then you"

Doctorjorts Profile Joined September 2010 58 Posts #19 I agree that the major issue is almost always that the scrub's macro slipped, but I think you can still benefit from knowing the best way to counter someone else's strategy. If I played against the best terran player in the world and he told me he would create JUST siege tanks, knowing that chargelots are a good early counter wouldn't win me the game but it would definitely let me survive just a little longer.



Knowing what to do is the first step. Doing it is the second step. Figuring out how to do it well is the third step. Just doing SOMETHING is usually a decent plan for a scrub, but knowing how to get the most out of a limited APM is valuable knowledge, too.



I'm just saying it's not unimportant, even though we scrubs probably spend too much time thinking and not enough of it doing.

goof Profile Joined September 2010 Norway 53 Posts #20 I just wanted to bump this, as this is by far the best thread I've read in the SC2 section.

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