Example 1: DeParture vs Hurricane (Proleague Dusk Towers)

VOD

For this example, we will use the time-stamps of the YouTube video since ProLeague has taken out the in game timer from their matches.

Most of the early game things like DeParture’s three Hatch before Pool and the Gas timing are going to happen no matter what. That is what I mean by you should have a build order for the opening of your match, since he does not know what Hurricane is doing yet (no vision of anything) you can make the assumption he planned to open three Hatch before Pool prior to starting this game.

When we reach 4:18 in the video, this is when we can start assuming that everything that DeParture will do from here on out is for a reason because now he scouts the two Gateways in the front (Figure 1). So to look at this screen shot, you absolutely know that this Overlord pathing was completely intentional. With the current meta in Starcraft almost no pro gamer opens with a Stalker so it is rather safe to fly the Overlord straight to the Gateways every time.

Figure 1) You can see the Overlord reach the base and see the 2 Gateways.

Right off the bat, seeing the 2 Gateways completely eliminates the idea of a quick proxy Gateway rush so DeParture immediately starts his 3 Queens knowing he can do so safely.

Things get a little weird around 4:40 when we see DeParture build 10 Zerglings. Normally most players when watching this VOD would not think anything of this because they don’t know what to look for, but remember, DeParture plays this game for 10+ hours a day. He knows what he is doing. These 10 Zerglings are a direct reaction to seeing the 2 Gateways being chronoed. This means that Hurricane will pressure with at least two adepts. So when you are playing against a Protoss player next time and you see this exact opening from them, you know EXACTLY how you should respond.

Again, when you are watching VODs in order to improve you should be paying attention to every little detail that goes on in this game. For example, at 4:57 we see that DeParture has rallied his 10 Zerglings to his ramp. Is this an accident? No! Is this where he naturally sets the rally for all of his Hatcheries? I highly doubt it. He is doing this for a reason, now it is our job to determine that reason and learn from it. As you can see in Figure 2, his Lings are starting to pile up on his ramp as the Adepts are about half way across the map. My assumption is that if he were to position his Zerglings towards the front of his third base then the Adept could just shade right past his Zerglings and he would end up spending the next 1–2 minutes chasing down the Adpets while they target drones. This is bad and if DeParture did this he probably would not be as good as he is today.

Figure 2) DeParture has positioned his Lings to intercept the Adept shade as they are about to run out.

Now that we understand that he is not placing his Lings there by accident and why he is doing that, let’s look at the different options that the Protoss has when he sees this positioning. In Figure 3, at 5:15, we can see that because of this positioning, his Lings do not take any damage and they are able to follow the Shades in such a way that if Hurricane let his Shades finish, they would be immediately surrounded by the Zerglings which would give DeParture a huge advantage.

Figure 3) DeParture has no Drones at the 3rd and has his Lings in the correct position.

By having no Drones at the 3rd base and having his Lings in the correct position the absolute worst case scenario is that Hurricane cancels the shade and DeParture loses nothing. Best case scenario would be that Hurricane let the Shades finish, and then DeParture surrounds and kills the Shades putting Hurricane far behind in the early game.

What we can see here is on the surface DeParture rallies his Zerglings to the ramp. End of story. Most of the time players would never even realize that this is happening or that he just happened to accidentally send them to the ramp and that’s it. Obviously we can see (and you could see a similar trend in other games) that this is completely intentional. This is one example in a very long game that shows that even the smallest things we normally don’t spend too much time thinking about could be something that you could be implementing in order to improve your game. So by understanding that something so small could actually be something that separates how you defend an Adept opening to how DeParture defends an Adept opening will really show you how much you may miss when you are watching replays.