Season 8 - Stats, Strats, and more...

It's finally over, and the results are in! This was my first season being promoted to Gold league, and I'd say I did pretty damn well. Adjusting from Silver wasn't all that difficult because there isn't too much of a skill gap between and anyone in silver and anyone outside of, I'd say, Top 25 Gold. This season really was a roller coaster for me in terms of rank. I broke into the top 8, moving into 6th place, briefly by going on a total rampage against Protoss and Terran for about a weeks worth of play. There is definitely a noticeable difference in skill within the Top 8 because these people are knocking of the door of Platinum, or just got kicked out that same door and are trying to fight their way back in. I played some pretty tough people, and was slowly squeezed back out of Top 8.
When the season finally ended, I secured a 19th place finish. I'm both proud of this, but it leaves SO much more room for improvement. I'm not sure if I mentioned it in a previous post, but I've been keeping an excel sheet of all of my games so that I can track my win/loss record because Blizzard won't give us any help on this one.

For the next part I'll be doing what I always do, and that is break down, race by race, the current builds that I am using that have shown me success. BUT, on top of the builds I am now pleased to say that I will be able to run the numbers and analyze just how effective my current builds are! This is the part I've been the most excited to write about since I started keeping a W/L record!

I tried to record every game I played, but I’m sure a couple slipped through the cracks. I played a total of 223 games and had an overall win rate of 51.5%. Even though I had to collect the stats, it’s pretty neat to see Blizzard’s system at work; matching you against stronger and weaker players dependent on how you do, with the eventual goal of finding a place in the ladder system where you will maintain a 50% win-rate. Once you got too far below or above this number you will be promoted/demoted. I’ll take that extra 1.5%, and we’ll call it progressing towards Platinum haha.

I’ll go from best matchup to worst in terms of win %.

*drumroll*

Protoss W/L – 42-24 – 63%

Can you believe it?! I’m crushing this matchup! It may be arrogant of me to think, but when I see this matchup pop up on the loading screen I am overcome with joy. I have a lot of confidence in this build, and I haven’t really used much else since I learned of it.

Build: 2 Rax poke into 2-1-1 all-in

Now, I know this sounds cheesy, and that’s because it really is. It’s a big wheel of cheese rolling right at the Protoss, and it is hard for them to see it coming. I know there isn’t much behind this promise due to my lack of recording, but to explain this and do it justice I need to put some gameplay to it. Now, I’ve already made a video of the 2-1-1 all-in but that did not include the 2-rax poke and how to use it.

Here the opening build order:

10 supply

12 rax 1 marine then reactor @50 gas

14 gas

15 OC

16 rax tech lab immediately, then start concussive shells

17 supply

- Constant marines + marauders, push with the first ~4 marines and 1 marauder.

-If you do it right, you should have a 1000 dollar army, combat shields on the way, and 24 workers at 6 minutes. It takes some practice, but the glory of this poke is that it doesn’t cut economy, while allowing you to put some pressure on your opponent.

-I will tie the two pieces of this build together in a video.

Terran W/L – 33-30 – 52.3%

The TvT match-up is a giant chess match, more so than either of the other match-ups. Due to the fact that there was nothing outstanding really with the build order I WAS using, I want to talk about a build that I adopted after being crushed by it one match. It requires the ability to micro with your harass, and macro back home otherwise you aren’t gaining an advantage from it. I practiced it for a while, and through my first ten games versus Terran I’ve won eight of them! The amount of things going on in this build would be hard to summarize in words, but please don’t let that scare you. I’m in Gold league remember?

The opening is a 1-1-1 hellion drop -> expand -> into cloaked banshees -> marine/tank/medivac

It goes something like this:

10 supply

12 gas

13 rax

17 supply

18 factory - @50 gas put reactor on rax, switch when it finishes and make 4 hellions.

19 OC

- Starport + 2^nd gas –make a medivac, load up hellions, and drop his mineral line. Tech lab once the medivac finishes

~32 CC

-From here you move into cloaked banshees to continue the harass

- Macro, macro, macro. Put the rax on the reactor, and make a tech lab on the naked factory.

- If he survived this and you did damage, he’s in bad shape. You’ve got a full 2 base income and now it is a matter of just building up a big enough army with this advantage and walking across the map and crushing him with it.

This build is fun to pull off because you don’t have to wait until the 10-minute mark to find out whose army is bigger. You can now do damage from 7-10 minutes to assure that you will have a bigger army.

Lastly, with the current meta-game who in their right mind is going to pin you on a hellion drop at 7-8 minutes?? Not many, and that is why people never see it coming. I will also make a video breaking this build down.

Zerg W/L – 35-49 – 39.3%

I will ask again, “HELP ME PLEASE”. This match-up still continues to frustrate me. I don’t have a solid build order yet, so I won’t be talking about one. After I saw what my final win % was I instantly threw out what I was using. I began to think why I can’t compete with good Zergs, and it’s because of their ability to have such a sick economy in the early-mid game. A Terran’s economy doesn’t begin to flourish until around the 9-10 minute mark, giving Zergs all the time they need to harass, or outright win with a bane bust or influx of lings.

So you know what I’ve begun to do? I’m just as greedy as the Zerg by using a variation of the now popular 3OC build – I go CC first! That’s right, three fuckin' Command Centers feeding my main and natural. While it’s a struggle to deal with harass in the beginning, your economy literally EXPLODES by 7-8 minutes in. I’ve never been able to be that active that early in the game before.

I’ll end here and promise a video for this build as well.

Overall, I would say that Season 8…er…3, was a success for me because I was able to compete with those at the top of my league, and even beyond! I beat 6 platinum players, and that gives me hope that I can keeping growing. I haven’t maxed out my skill yet.

So, after all of this reading how are your eyes feeling? I hope you found something interesting/useful in this post. My next three posts are going to address each race and the builds that I am using in more detail.

Good luck in season 4 everybody!!

Season 8 Update - Games 50-100

I know that at this point I'm basically behind on everything I said I was going to do. :( Sorry about that. There wont be too much substance to this post because I've already dug into games 100-150, so remembering what the meta-game was like, and what I saw a lot of over the span of these games is tough.

There are two main observations that I have made while playing since I got back though.

In TvT, I've been facing a lot of cloaked banshee openings, which is fine by me because they are fairly easy to counter with good turret placement and saved scan. Good news! I have been doing much better in reacting to my opponent rather than going into robot mode and just doing the build.

If my opponent is going to one base I just simply match him and use a 1 base build until I can get a contain/push him away -->then expand. Doing a 1 rax FE against a 1 base terran is pretty difficult to hold off with your limited army, premature economy, and lack of tech. I believe I make better choices when it comes to micro, and so that is why I let our economies stay the same and let the game hinge on out micro.

My go-to 1 base build is either cloaked banshee opening as well, or a 111 push when I get the first viking to pop.

In TvP, I've been playing some pretty quick games...like 7 or 8 minutes. No, I'm not using a cheese build. I'm sure many of you are aware of the 2 rax poke as it is pretty standard nowadays, but for those of you that aren't this little bit of harassment can win you the game outright if your opponent is teching too fast.

This opening, along with a solid follow up to it is what I will be hopefully sometime soon be making a video about.

Nothing too impressive in the stats this time, but here they are:

Like I said, not impressive, but if I can improve on the little things, I'm hoping that I can achieve a more steady win rate over all of the races.

I will put out this damn TvP video...perhaps I will do it tonight -still camera shy even though it's only my voice : X

New league, new struggles.

I'm through my first 50 games, and I'm ready to try to work though out all of the troubles I am having, as well as talk a little bit about what I've been doing post some wins as few and far between as they may seem.

This season I am tracking my wins on an excel spreadsheet to see how well I am actually doing because for some reason Blizzard doesn't allow individual players to track their statistics from battle.net. I am aware their are third-party programs that you can mess with but I'm on a Mac, and a lot of them programs are native to PC. It's all ok though because a simple spreadsheet saves a lot of time. So I guess the big question is: 

What do the stats say?

As you can see, the jump for me from Silver to Gold hasn't been a very easy one. The main differences I see between the two leagues are:

- Consistent worker production: You really cant afford to miss SCV's

- Solid Macro: Hitting those benchmarks I've talked about are really important.

- Better micro: I use the word better because there is a clear difference in what I used to play against versus what I see now, but it's nothing amazing.

- More Rushes/Early Timing Attacks: 4 gates, Proxy Thor Rush, Baneling Busts, etc...

I believe pretty strongly that I possess the first three, and use cheese very rarely, but there is one thing that I really need to start focusing on: Scouting.

I need to scout later, and read up on what I should expect to see when I arrive at thier base. After this, I need to react with the proper counter. I tend to speculate on what their going to do, but I never do anything with this information. Unless its something really odd I just continue on with my build, and if their build hits before mine fully mature - I insta-lose. This could be a key to buffing up my win percentage.

I know I shouldn't be locked into builds after talking about reacting to what I see, but unless I scout something funky or familiar that I know how to deal with here are the builds I am using currently:

TvT: Thozain's Build

TvZ: Reactored Hellion --> Cloaked Banshee --> Marine/Marauder/Tank/Medivac

TvP: Bomber's TvP build

Bomber's TvP build is another one that I have learned from Day9's Dailies and it's working pretty well, it's weakness is a 4gate so you need to scout and ditch this build if you see it coming. My next video is going to be covering this exact build and just how much Protoss ass it kicks when you push between the 10-11 minute mark! 

I will probably not be making a blog post about this build, but instead I will just make a video and post it to my Youtube channel The Lost Tutorials. 

Check back at my channel in the next week or so, or just subscribe, and I should have it up! If there is a certain race you are struggling with, and are in Gold or below, feel free to send me a message and we can work on it. 

Enjoy

-Kyle

Season 8, Let's go!

Just making a quick post to wish anyone reading good luck in season 8! I ended up finishing in 5th place in silver league, which I'm happy with.

I played the all important placement match, and I ended up losing to a Top 8 Gold Zerg. I was pretty bummed, and it as the results popped up I was put back into Silver. I hopped into another match real quick and it was a TvT. I used the Thorzain build that I recently made a post about, and after all but starving him for minerals I ended up winning. Expecting this to be the first win in the long process of actually getting promoted during the season, I let the results load and it stalled for a bit. Finally, an unexpected message popped up...Here it is:

BOOYAH! Promoted to Gold League!
I am so happy that I finally made it into Gold :D 
Next stop Platinum, but who knows how far away that is.  

Good luck!

Kyle

I must be doing SOMETHING right.

I am on FIRE right now. I started today ~11th place

As usual, here are my win ratios by race for the day:

TvT 10-0

TvP 3-4

TvZ 5-2

I was so surprised when I was working out the win rates and I hadn't lost to Terran all day. This used to be my worst match up, and I know the exact reason. I was stuck in the mindset of "marines can do anything" and "you can win without tanks". While it is possible to dos, I have found that it is much easier to just do a better job at building tanks than your opponent. A lot of the Terrans I played today just had build orders that were slow, and couldn't defend against a push in the mid game. So, I have succumbed to using tanks, but apparently it is working really well for me!

Protoss...well, I don't really know. I still use the Halby 2-1-1 build that I made a video for (you can find it on my blog), but the stupid buff for the observer build time is allowing the Protoss to easily counter me because they know what is coming a good minute ahead of time. It's frustrating, but I'll have to figure something out. This is turning into my weakest match up because I simply don't know what to do. Maybe give a mech a try? If you have any suggestions leave a comment!

Speaking of mech, I have been obliterating Zerg players using the DeMuslim push into thor/banshee/marine. I have not face much of a challenge using this style of play. It took some getting used to because I love marines, I always felt that Mech was so sluggish, but the amount of damage it can handle is incredible. If you bring along SVCs to auto-repair you have almost invincible units.

I'm going to be going more into about this match up in particular for this post because I think Zerg is the race that low level Terrans, like myself, have A LOT of trouble handling.

I'll try to keep this from becoming a wall of text, so I'll leave a lot of talking to be done in the video.

Here I will post the build order that leads up to the initial first push. This push is designed to take out the Zerg's third base at around the 9:30-10:00 mark. So here we go!

DeMuslim Push Build Order 3-1-0 into 3-3-2

10 supply
12 rax
14 supply
16 gas
17 Obital
20 CC
21 Factory
23 (reactor on rax)
    - Rax #2 (tech lab as soon as done-start stim)
    - Rax #3 (tech lab as soon as done-start combat shield)
    -ebay (start +1 attack)
    -bunker
    -supply

NOTE
This is a VERY basic build order, and you do really need to watch the video because you need to put the buildings in the right places. At the 10:00 minute mark, or whenever stim finishes you need to push out and try to take down their 3rd with what should be, if done perfectly, a $3500 dollar army including research. You'll have stim, combat shield, and +1 weapons, and this push will be very deadly.
From here, as the name of the BO suggests, you need to throw down 2 more factories, and 2 starports. From here I like to transition right into mech. So for your next push you'll have thor/marines/banshees and he probably won't expect it. You end up teching up real quick after the first push and it makes it hard for the Zerg to catch up. Just make sure you continue to deny his expansions, while adding on your own.

             DeMuslim Build into mech - TvZ

After of day of kicking some ass, I guess/hope you would be curious as to how much progress I made today. Well, here we are!

I'm 1st place in Silver league!! I'm going into tomorrow with a 9-game win streak. I would be ecstatic if I got promoted :)



P.S. Next post will be focusing on Terran, to those who are stuck trying to win dreaded tank wars :)

-Kyle

Starting Season 7 off right!

I ended up losing my placement match to a top 8 gold player, and so, I was put back into Silver...

My goal for this season is staying within the top 15 all season, and pushing for a promotion if I can. I got off to a great start this season by going 4-0 in my first four games! The builds are becoming more fluid for me, and I am just playing better overall. I did take my first loss last night when I tried to 6 rax a Top 8 Gold Zerg on Metalopolis -_-


I also want to try to play at least 2-3 matches per day if can. School is in the process of winding down and so I'm hoping I will a bit more time to play.


Just wanted to give an update, and I miiiiiight have a new video coming out that uses Halby's 2-1-1 build against TvP, so stayed tuned for that!

 One of the first four wins I got this season went a little something like this...needless to say I think I'm getting good enough to play on a Gold level all the time. Enjoy! :)

-Kyle

Momentum before season 7 begins!

Does this record look familiar anyone!?

After a rough day yesterday trying to perfect some builds and dropping all the way to 12th, I used those very same builds but with much greater flow to them by not supply blocking myself or forgetting a production cycle. I even managed to beat 2 gold Zergs!

Today's Record: 7-2

To break it down like I normally do, today only 1 Terran gave me trouble. It was my fault for letting him tech to mass cloak banshees and eventually battlecruisers. I find it strange that I've played at least 2 other TvT's where I end up losing to this hunk of junk in the sky within the last 3 days! The easiest and most obvious way to stop this is to squash them early because it takes a good 12-15 for this to work, which a leaves a TON of time beforehand to win the match. The other loss was a Zerg on Metalopolis who managed to hold off my Six Rax Rush and make the tech switch to roaches; not much I could have done here.

 I've been watching a lot of gameplay, specifically Thorzain, because I like how methodical he plays. His builds after watching them time out perfectly, and this is why I've taken on two of his builds.

TvT 2-1
Here I am using Thorzain's 3 rax opener that allows you to get around 30 marines with Combat Shield, Stim, AND +1 with two medivacs to push out with at the 10 minute mark. I had a hard time believing that you could fit all of that in. It is incredibly strong and can run through even a Terran who is going to fortify his base with tanks. If he can hold your initial push off, you transition into double factory play. this.build.is.beastly.
Check it out here: TvT awesomeness 

TvP 1-1
For this matchup, I have gotten comfortable using Halby's 2-1-1 build that makes it very easy to contain a Protoss with sieged tanks, a ton of marines, and a medivac. You wont get any upgrades with the initial 2-3 tank/marine push because you'll be using the money you would spend on upgrades on infantry. This build is really meant to kill the Protoss before collosus pop out, but it makes it easy to transition into the mid-late game because it is a variant of the 1-1-1.
The basic principle of this build is this: You are choosing to have a bigger army that isn't upgraded, instead of a smaller army that would have minimal upgrades. These can produce two totally different outcomes. This is an easy and fun build to do!
Check it out here:  Click to crush the protoss!


TvZ 3-1
So after 6 raxing A LOT, I now acknowledge that I can't use it on big maps because of the time it takes reinforcements to arrive. From now on I will only be using it on the most effective map, Metalopolis. Every other map is bigger than this, so I needed a new build. After watching a couple I chose to learn, and stick to Thorzain's Marine/hellion expand into MTV. Not only is his initial push a great way to do some serious economic damage, but it again is easy to do and just flows smoothly. Just hit all the timings, and it you will CRUSH the Zerg with your second push. 
Check it out here: Zergy Zergy Zergy Yeah!


Now that I feel pretty comfortable against all races, I will be trying to make and post videos of how well I execute them all, and just how well they work overall! 


I'm really hoping that with an MMR in the Gold range that if I can win my placement match I can be moved up after only 1 season in silver! Keep your fingers crossed for me.


I hope you enjoyed reading, and I'll you in season 7!

 Check out my channel!

 

Today's Record

I played 9 games today, and only have one area that I'm still unsure about. Overall, I feel really good about my play and the builds that I am picking.

My record today: 7-2
4-0 vs. Terran
0-1 vs. Protoss
3-1 vs. Zerg

(I didn't count the win with a match date of "yesteday")

Not dropping a game versus Terran speaks for itself. I'm scouting correctly, stopping drops, denying elevator play, and then putting on pressure of my own. My typical build in this matchup is usually a 2 hellion, 4-marine medivac drop -- expand -- into double factory play. I can set up a contain really quickly and begin upgrade continuously after that. He either runs out of minerals and has to throw all of his troops at my tank wall, or try to drop into a turret ring. I fell like I've gotten this one down for now.

My one and only game against Protoss ended up with me getting crushed. I just didn't have enough to defend his push. This is definitely a match-up that I need to play more defensive in until at least the 9:30 mark when I can get a banshee to his base to harass. Recently, I haven't done much damage at all with 2 rax pressure, and so I'll be switching to what I hope will be an effective strategy. Its going to be a 1-1-1 that techs straight to cloaked banshees so I can harass and try to throw him off his build. In the mid game the strategy is to get a good mix of marine-thor-banshee. I'm hoping this will work because Protoss is starting to become my shaky match.

Just a week ago, seeing that I had been matched up with a Zerg would have made me feel as though I already lost without the match even starting. In all 4 of these games today I opened with my 6 Rax Rush Build. Surprisingly it went unscouted by the Overlord in all of my matches. My initial push didn't win the game outright, but I was able run each opponent out of resources, avoid his busts, and tech up a little bit. One thing I have gotten better at doing is getting a reactored starport earlier, and begin to produce a few tanks to back up my marines. A tank or two is good enough against one base Zerg to keep the contain.
The obvious counter to mass marines are roaches, but only one of my opponents made this switch which I was very suprised at, and that switch resulted in me losing. The others just insisted on trying to stop my push with banelings...

I have had a string of winning days now, and I'm crossing my fingers to be placed in Gold for next season! That would be pretty awesome. Anyways, this win streak and improvement in play has taken me from barely holding top 40 in silver, to here:

If anyone has any solid TvP builds feel free to send them my way because I might be needing them!
Maybe new video tomorrow?
Check out my SC2 Channel here: The Lost Tutorials

Anyone in college reading this right now go check out the CSL (Collegiate Star League). I just found it today, and I'm considering seeing if I could find any interest at my school to register us for the league. It is really cool idea, and there are Ivy League schools involved, as well as smaller schools! Sorry for the length of this post, but I hope it was enjoyable to read.


--Kyle

Help Me.

So I'm in Silver league now, hooray!

However, I just keep getting my ass kicked. I'm starting to question my builds, and just get frustrated. For any terrans out there, please give me your opening builds for each race. Also, do you ever put on early pressure, or just wait to hold off their first 7 or 8 minute attack?
There aren't many builds that terran can win in the early game with like a 6 pool from zerg, or cannon rush from protoss...we can really only harass.
TvP - 2 rax pressure with almost never win you the game, you'll be lucky to take out a stalker and maybe a zealot as well.
TvZ - bunker rush can be effective against someone who doesn't know how to defend it, but most people in silver are making lings before they finished droning up, which this opening slightly relies on.
TvT - Not much going on here.

My final conclusion would be that I need to just keep building up an army at home because trying to pressure is only going to put me behind, hence why I get steamrolled after I try to pressure.

I'll probably be sticking around the base until the almost standard 7 or 8 minute attack. If I'm still getting my ass kicked after this, I don't even know.

Bronze League Openings

So, yes, you've probably already judged me for admitting that I am in Bronze league but if you are struggling figuring out how to win consistently as Terran, then please take the time to read this post. I believe it will at least give you a solid build against all races, and if not then maybe you haven't seen this version of a build and can add it to your list!

For this match-up unless I scout something really funky or they are rushing me I use a 1-1-1 build.
10 supply
12 rax--> make 2 marines, and scout
13 gas
16 Orbital
16 Supply to finish wall
@100 gas build factory--Tech lab as soon as finished
20 Starport
22 rax
~24 switch factory and Starport--**Start cloak research first**, then make 2 banshees
-Send Banshees to do damage to their mineral line around 9:30 minutes
CC ~10 minutes and expand behind your next push.

One of the big advantages to this build is that you can really do what ever you want from here based on what you see early on from scouting, and then from what you'll see from the banshee harass. A lot of the time I will add another rax, factory, and go with a standard marine/tank/medivac. Adjust your unit composition to counter what you see from the numerous times you will get a peek at his base.

Here I use a 3-rax expand that holds up SUPER well against what you'll most commonly be facing, which is probably some sort of stalker, zealot, sentry combo. You also won't have to worry about dark templar play because I put a raven in the mix that negates them being permanently cloaked, plus you'll also have scans.
10 supply
12 rax -- *Scout here* make 1-2 marines, then get a reactor
13 gas
15/16 Orbital
16 supply to finish wall
17 rax -- tech lab once done; research Stim first
24 rax -- tech lab once done; research combat shields second, then concussive last
25 factory
31 Starport--tech lab once done, make a raven
--Make sure you are constantly producing marines and marauders.
**Around 9:30 you should start a CC, and push out with your army. All upgrades should be done by the time you get to their base. Lift you CC off to your natural so you can expand while you put on some pressure/destroy their natural, or contain them in their base.

This is definitely my WEAKEST match, and one that I need to work on myself, but this build should bring you success against the lower leagues.I got this build from TerranSpecialistSC2, who is a GM Terran player on the NA server, and it is a hellion-harass into 3 tank timing push. Phew, I know that might sound like a lot, but it works once you get it down.
10 supply
12 rax make 2 marines, then @ 50 gas make a reactor
13 gas
15 Orbital
16 supply to finish wall
18 factory
-Here you want to swap your factory and rax, then make 4 hellions. Send them to his base to harass, contain, but most importantly keep them alive.
--Put a tech lax on the swapped rax.
21- CC
-After the 4 hellions are made, switch the two back and begin making tanks. Get siege mode for them.
Around the 9 minute mark, or when you have 3 tanks, you should push out. Expand behind this as well.
**Check out TerranSpecialist's video for an example of this build because he does it a lot better than I do. Check it out here, and try not to be to intimated by all clicks and highlighting he does :P


I will be posting videos of how I do these build in some live matches soon, and post them here from my Channel. Hope these can give everyone some success, or help you out getting some easy builds under your belt. Let me know how they work for you!
Videos coming soon!


--Kyle