Road to Masters (4)

[spoiler=What is this column about?]
I am crAzerk, and I've been playing Starcraft since the original. I love the game, and I love writing, thus the chance to combine both passions excited me to no end. So here I am, providing (hopefully) entertaining writeups for you guys!

I aspire to be in Masters League. And I will strive hard to fight my way out of Diamond. This column will document my journey. Each time, I will write about five or more games that I've played on ladder, and discuss my struggles and thoughts about each game.[/spoiler]


Day 3 of my push to Masters league.. I'm doing so badly I am considering what I thought about the previous post - renaming this to 'Life of a Diamond noob'. For now, dreaming about Masters seems to be like a fat clumsy office worker who can't throw a piece of rubbish into a bin accurately dreaming about being in the NBA.

Also, I have decided to make this a weekly column.. just that I'm not sure which day I should post it on. Is Friday good?

ANYWAY. Let's get on to the games!


1) vs MicromaN (Protoss) on XNC
Last night after my devastating day of like 10% win rate or something, I did some reflection and figured the spanishiwa opening wasn't working for my ZvP.

After some training with my Toss training partner(Narsus, a Masters toss), he concluded that roach/ling all in builds were imba LOL. Because we played quite a few games where he tried to 3 gate expand and I just kept roach/sling all-in him and he didn't really come close to holding off any of them. Is it a build order loss? I don't know. Assuming ideal micro (perfect FFs, perfect ling surround, etc) from both sides, it seems to favor the Zerg.

Thus, I decided to go roach/ling all my games today! (for toss)

As usual, gas steal! Cancel and remake, cancel and remake! :D

I opened with a standard 14 gas/14 pool (for earlier ling speed, and also because any decent toss will block a 14 hatch) into 21 hatch.
As usual, I gas stole him the moment he put his Cybernetics Core down.
There are 2 reasons why you steal it at this exact timing -
1) When he JUST got his CC, it's probably when he JUST has 150 minerals. So he won't have minerals to build an Assimilator down before this! And if he DOES put his 2nd gas down before this, he is delaying his CC by 75 minerals!

Oh ok I combined the 2 into 1 point. Anyway yea gas steal really limits his tech routes SO much, it basically prevents any quick stargate rushes or DT rushes. And you should cancel about 2-3 times (just before complete) and on the 3rd time you can just run out of his base (do the mineral pathing trick to get past his zealot.. but he'll prob have a stalker/sentry out to kill you though)
In addition, gas steal will limit his sentries assuming he still goes a 3gate expand, which works wonders for the build I'm going.

Zergling: "I'm bored. Where's the kind probe who is supposed to come play with me?"

At about 7 minutes, he STILL hasn't expanded. This was when warning bells began going off in my head. 1 base play means some kind of cheesy crap like maybe blink stalkers DTs or some funny shenanigans.

At about 8 minutes, my sac OL spotted his TwilightCouncil, and seeing the number of stalkers he had, I figured it was blink stalkers.

Tactical mistake that cost me the game here. I did not engage here.

Ok I need some professional opinion here. Could I have engaged (and won) here? I saw him setting up a proxy pylon at my gold, and I was hesitant whether to engage because he was hovering around the rocks (read: choke)
28 lings 9 roaches vs 13 (blink)stalkers 4 zealots?

In MY opinion, on hindsight, I think i SHOULD have won this fight.. but my mistake was waiting and letting him warp in another round of stalkers.

Excellent blink micro. Look at all the red hp stalkers at the back! 

I don't think roach/ling quite cuts it against a sizeable blink stalker army like this - probably need hydras for more DPS :S
No, don't say infestors. It hits way too early for infestors.

He kept reinforcing and I had to GG out.

I think roach/ling holds an early blink stalker push (e.g. just when blink is done) but if he masses more than 10 stalkers you're gonna need some spine/hydra/transfuse(?!) support. I think. Don't trust me, I'm only a diamond aspiring to be masters.


2) vs Rain (Zerg) on Shakuras Plateau
ZvZ is really my pet match up, I kinda know it pretty well and know where I went wrong every game (when i lose). I opened 15 hatch this game, and he TRIED to but my scouting drone blocked it :) So he had to go pool first.

Pro tip - In ZvZ, leave your first OL in this position - watching the expo and the ramp
You may even want to leave the OL watching his Hatchery just when his pool finishes, to know how many larva he saved up for lings

It's very important to have this OL there, as first it lets you know when he expands, and second and probably more importantly, you know what is coming at you.
When I open with my 15 hatch build, I find it ESSENTIAL to know what he is going for. I basically count the lings coming out.
2 lings? normal scouting lings
4 lings? not to worry, normal scouting lings
6 lings? That's a little too many. Keep watching ramp.
8 lings and up ? It's some ling/bling nonsense or mass speedlings+1 or SOMEthing. Get. Banelings. Nest.

Ok maybe I need to put up my BO for this to make sense:
15 hatch
15 pool
17 gas
17 OL
4 lings when pool done, and Queen, then Roach Warren
20 OL
Pump roaches when OL is done.

This build more or less holds a standard pool opener and you just have to block your ramp with roaches and you're safe against a ling/bling attack. However, I do get a Baneling nest if I see too many lings coming, because he can just surround my expo, kill it, and expand himself while he transits to roaches. really annoying.
(if i push out he runs by and kills drones, etc. Need banelings)

Alternative wall, instead of fully blocking your ramp.
This allows me to swing over to defend the expo hatch if he tries to attack it, and swing back easily to block the ramp.
I kept the lings at the top because I was going to morph them into banelings

And indeed, he was going for ling/bling:

Yes yes blow up your blings on my roaches no problem. 

However with his lings attacking my hatch this whole time, he did manage to kill it (just barely! with one ling! omg) But he basically traded like 8 blings and 10 lings for one hatchery. Do the math, it's not worth it at all.

And of course I counter-attacked immediately, with my 7 or so roaches, and i rallied lings as well to morph into blings. Roaches alone don't quite cut it against large numbers of lings, especially if they get a surround, so you need some blings.

My blings killed ALOT of his lings/blings. GG

3) vs Damosc (Protoss) on XNC
I must apologize to this guy here, if he even reads the forums. If you know him you can tell him crAzerk apologizes (again). Well he asked 'can i pause for 1 sec'  at the start.. and being in the bad mood I was (10% WR the previous day remember) I said no and unpaused immediately.
In fact this was the same treatment that some Masters players from nGen or aLt or something gave me too.
I did apologize to him after the game so and he said np so... yea.

So I opened 14 gas/14pool into 21 hatch again, and gas steal again, amidst his smack talk ("I will enjoy beating you then")

And he went for... 5 gate -_-

AND...
.
.

Being the pro diamond player i am, I scouted this like, at a perfectly early timing when it was finishing already -_-  Not sure if my OL was there the whole time.. let's just pretend it was flying there yea. 

So I pulled 6 drones and lings were on the way out, with roaches too.

His bad decision here - Why would you warp in 2 sentries 2 lots? Just warp in 4 zealots! 

And I realized later on he also warped in 2 more sentries.. bad bad. If you're doing some 4gate rush like that, warp in zealots/stalkers. You probably want at most 1 sentry to FF the ramp, but you need all zealots/stalkers, according to what units the Zerg has.

After I held this off, I half-expected him to GG out. But I guess after my BM at the start he wanted to beat me badly, so he stayed on, and transitioned to blink stalkers.

Learning from the previous game, I got a quick Hydra Den out (I didn't scout his TC, but if he was staying on one base, hydras would beat anything he sends at me (colussus won't be so fast) ) and I was expecting blink stalkers because he had alot of stalkers.

I -kinda- knew I would be good to handle it once Hydras were out, so I kept dancing with him with my roach army

Lucky surround! Hydras were popping from the main and expo lol.
And that spore crawler was in case of DTs.

And I made a stupid mistake of not putting drones on my 3rd gas, so I couldn't really fund hydras :S I ended up spamming whatever buttons I could getting a mix of roach/hydra/lings.
He had some pretty decent blink micro though, so I was barely holding on :

Wtf so many stalkers

Lucky for me, with my lings tanking the stalker's shots, and my hydra's awesome DPS, I fended off his blink stalker army

And after I cleaned it out, he GGed out

Still nice enough to say 'gg wp'! Because he was sucha nice person I felt bad and apologized after the game. If he had said something like 'you despicable rat your family is going to burn' and left the game I would have just ignored him and reported him to blizzard for abuse or something

4) vs skywall (Protoss) on Shattered Temple
Cross spawn, and I wanted to go hatch first, but I saw his probe almost reaching my base so I had to go the fast speed build again.
My drone spotted a FORGE first (on the high ground too! I wonder why.. )

After seeing the forge, I quickly moved my 2nd OL back towards my expo ( I was sending it to his cliff) because he may cannon me.

Good call, he WAS trying to cannon.

I immediately pulled 4 more drones (with this scouting drone that was returning) to handle it, with 1 drone on his probe and the other 4 hitting the pylon. And I've no idea why but he put down a 2nd pylon (prolly to block my expo?) and ran his probe away without trying any cannons.

I saw his retarded 'wall-in' and decided to try a zergling runby. I've no idea why he didn't get the forge on the low ground if he already planned on a fast expand himself.

The run-by didn't really work well because of his 3 cannons, i was left with 6-7 lings from about 12 lings. Still killed about 6 probes though, and probably put him on his toes abit.

Now, when a Protoss fast expands, I know there are 2 routes to take -
1) Get an early 3rd, because Zerg needs to stay one base ahead
2) All-in with a roach bust or nydus.

I'm not very comfortable with playing with early 3rd because I'm not familiar with how hard I am supposed to drone, and because of his cannon wall in, I decided to go for a nydus.

Unfortunately for me, he had a pylon at his cliff and the moment I put the nydus down I saw it and I thought I had failed.
However, he hesitated before pulling his probes:

Nydus at half hp...

TOO LATE! woot roaches popped.
And I think I was spamming 'D' on the nydus so it didn't have time to do its cool animation where the worm comes out and makes a loud WOOORRAAARHHH sound

Yea so he did manage to kill that nydus but only after I had got all my roaches out with 8 speedlings. 

So I just put another nydus down lol and cleared out his army as he tried to dance towards his expo to buy time to warp in more stalkers

I kept streaming lings and roaches, and I took out both pylons powering his 4gates, and he tapped out immediately when this happened

GG!

5) vs KKC (Zerg) on XNC

Hmm, no Terran love this morning. So yea, I went 15 hatch and he went pool first... into hatchery.

Now I'm not 100% sure about this, but to me whenever the opponent does this (pool into hatch immediately) it's an instant loss. (Or I'll be very confident of winning)

If Zerg goes pool first, he need to keep some kind of contain/pressure and even snipe the expo if possible without losing too much.. not go expo himself. On bigger maps this may work, but not for smaller maps or close spawns in my opinion.

As mentioned before, this OL placement is crucial. This helped me spot the expo.

Anyway, I saw alot of lings coming out so I got a baneling nest after my initial roaches.

Now once you have banelings, you HAVE to push immediately (if you were pumping units like me) The reasoning is simple - If  he is droning up this time instead of making units, you have a small window before his econ kicks in. Indeed, he had 8 drones more than me. That's why I had to hit immediately.

If he is making units, his roach warren will be slower than you if he committed to so many lings (If you don't see so many lings don't get a bling nest! If he hides his units you need to send a pair of lings up his ramp to check what he has) and so you will have more roaches.

So more roaches, + blings to counter lings, it's a clear win, if you hit within that window.

In fact, he had 2 supply more than me lol. But as you can see, my army is way superior to his.

Long story short, my blings owned his lings, I kept rallying roach + lings (not just roaches! You will be gas blocked anyway so send lings! getting the odd bling helps too) and overwhelmed his army.

OH yes one trick I wanted to share with you guys if you didn't already know.

When you are moving out with your roach /bane army, one thing I've seen many zergs like to do if they have invested in a heavy speedling army is to actually do a run-by when you are moving out and go into your mineral line and decimate your drones. 

This will actually win it for THEM, because this way you can't reinforce your army, and they WILL be able to get enough roaches/lings even to defend your roach/bane push. (after trading armies) and continue reinforce for themselves.

Thus, I've started doing this:

My building placement isn't ideal - your pool and RW(or bling nest) shoudl be on the left and right of your hatch respectively to form some sort of walloff into your mineral line.
But anyway, throw up a spine in your mineral line (once again, mine isn't ideal, but I was just trying to wall off that side), and leave 3-4 banelings in your base.
A 2nd queen helps too, to tank baneling splash and draw fire.

This more or less nullifies any stupid speedling runby into your mineral line. 

What if he morphs alot of banelings too? Then start rallying your units INTO your base, not to your main army. Your main army should be able to clean out his base (he wont have enough to produce BOTH roaches and banelings) and you just have to do some multitasking to get a simple win.

Good morning! 4 wins out of 5 games, even if they were all 'Even' matchups. Oh well. Going out for lunch with girlfriend now, hope to play more games later! If not this is it! haha.

~~~

6) vs Diphoria (Terran) on Typhon Peaks

Whee first Terran matchup of the day! I don't know why but nowadays I have a pretty good feeling in my ZvTs, probably because I'm winning LOL. Haven't been facing the REALLY good terrans.. guess 'really good' terrans will have too high MMRs to face me. 

Hi Mr Terran what's up?

I opened my Spanishiwa opening as usual, and scouted a 2 rax and laughed. 

I think I mentioned before how I enjoy playing against 2 rax nowadays. They usually do nothing much, given decent micro from the Zerg's part. And they also open the Terran up for a eco Baneling bust if they expand after that.

Anyway, I actually left my scouting Drone at the Watchtower so I could see what was coming. 

4 SCVs and 2 marines

And I must say I am VERY pleased with how I responded. I already had a precautionary spine going up, my queen was coming up at the expo, so I made 6 lings. And I remember clearly I actually told myself 'ok stop now! that's enough!'

Why am I so pleased? Because players commonly overreact when they see such pressure coming, and make like 10-12 lings or something when they don't really need so many. Myself included. Thus being able to override that 'panic' impulse is good!

Virtually perfect micro

In a bunker rush situation, your priorities are as such:

1) SCV(s) building bunkers 

1) Marines

2) other SCVs

Note that SCV on bunkers and Marines are equally important, so you should probably put something on the SCV on the bunker and something on the marines if you can surround them. Even if you can't, just chasing them with drones/lings will kill them eventually, they can't scoot and shoot forever.

And as you see in the above screenshot, I microed 2 lings + queen to snipe the SCV on the bunker, and you can note that the only units damaged are the marines! (well fine SCV in yellow but I was FFing the marines)

So pleased :D

Do understand I dont do this all the time that's why I'm happy with myself haha don't flameee :(

After holding off the bunker rush, I droned up, but he tried to do some sneaky marine action:

He hugged the edge and tried to sneak around my creep. 

It -kind of- worked because I only spotted him when he hit the back of my expo.

Unfortunately for him, he only killed 2 drones before I got a ling/drones surround and with my queen I was able to clear his pack of 6-7 marines easily. Not worth it for him!

Good surround with drones!

At this point I was feeling REALLY confident, seeing how he threw away so much resources at the start, so I decided to go for an eco baneling bust. I got the 2 gases in my base much earlier than the Spanishiwa build dictates, and quickly got Zergling Speed and a Baneling Nest.

After making another round of drones so my expo was moderately saturated (35 drones total), I pumped pure lings and rallied closer to his base.

Zerg Deathball? LOL.

BOOMZ
He had about 2-3 hellions, 8 marines (that were well spread out too) but my army was just too big, the lings just swarmed around the marines and banelings ran in and blew up.

Ran up his base and killed some popping hellions and marines, and blew up the rest of my banelings in his SCVs before he GGed.

He didn't have much units because it seemed like he was trying to do too much at once - He expanded, was teching to blue flame, and got a viking all at the same time. 

Anyway, after this game, my match history looked like this:

Hahaha. 5 wins after 5 loss streak. My next match is probably gonna be a slightlyfavored/favored matchup, so hope I can win again.