Tournament Mode LOTV

So Legacy of the Void is coming out soon, and I realized there was a feature I hadn’t even used yet: Automated Tournaments. This week, I’ve been giving them a shot.

I, too, wish to have the tournament StarCraft experience, from the convenience of my own home. So without having even tried it, I like the idea. Then I read a post on Reddit that said we get ladder points for a tournament. Excellent.

Turns out, the implementation leaves something to be desired.

You see, the tournament experience means that we get to play game sets. Best of three, or best of five. The tournament experience means that I get to show off multiple build orders against the same opponent, to keep him guessing. It means I’d get to play *mind games* with my opponent, playing out strategies across several games, something one could never do on the ladder.

But there’s none of that in tournament mode. Nope, all you get is three matches, with three different opponents, with thirty minutes in between games. Basically, a tournament, in its current form, is just scheduled ladder matches. It’s stupid, and there’s not even a reward for winning the whole shebang.

If Blizzard really cared, they’d give us those best of five and best of three sets that characterizes tournaments. Which would force players to learn multiple build orders, play mind games, and beg the question, “To cheese, or not to cheese?”

Adept Woes

So it’s been a while since I’ve blogged about StarCraft 2, and given the recent patch in Legacy of the Void (the only version I play nowadays) I think a post is due.

The big change is that Terran players no longer have Mules. Which is a big deal. But let’s not forget that Protoss doesn’t have Chronoboost, and Zerg has auto-inject larva, in a nerf sort of a way because you can only get two instead of four.

On the one hand, I’m baffled by this turn of the events. Even as we speak, Red Bull is hosting a tournament for Archon mode. And Archon mode makes a lot of sense, because it means that a single player doesn’t have to multi-task like he would have before. You can have one player dedicated to micro on attacks and another on macro. But then removed the big macro mechanic from all three races. What the fuck is the other guy in archon mode supposed to do if the one responsibility he had is now out of the game?

And while we’re talking about Archon mode, I couldn’t believe my eyes, when Huk beat Taeja. Okay, let me clarify that it was Taeja and TheSTC vs Huk and MC. But still. You’ll remember that Taeja is my *favorite* player. He’s used to pwn the game like it was nobody’s business. I wouldn’t expect him ever to lose to Taeja. Even if Taeja was playing one handed on Xanax. And yet, Taeja was the first player eliminated from the tournament, and Huk destroyed him. What gives?

I’ll tell you what. It was a combination of the removal of Mules, which were a big party of Taeja’s play, and the addition of Adepts. Which happen to do double damage to light units now. What a rip off. I always thought that a stalker was about as good against a marine as any protoss unit should be in the early game. But now Adepts can two shot marines (if I’m not mistaken). Add in their teleport spirit ability, and you have a unit that is *insanely* good in the early game. If you play as Protoss, you can’t *not* make Adepts lickety split. People are migrating to Toss in droves, just to use Adepts.

What else really sucks about Adepts is that they completely shut down reapers. Reapers are the only unit that Terran has in the early game, and suddenly Toss gets a unit that does double damage against them, and that can teleport. A reaper, which is supposed to be the fast, nimble early game unit, literally can’t escape from an Adept. Add to that a standard Mothership Core, which a reaper can’t hit, and what the fuck is a Terran player supposed to do against the Protoss. Did Blizzard even test this change before going live on the servers?

I saw this kind of abuse and thought I could come up with some kind of answer to adepts. But I couldn’t.  Sure, you don’t have to sink 150 minerals into Orbital commands anymore. But as a Terran player, the only answer I could come up with is to make Planetary Fortresses. I’m serious. It’s that bad.

My earlier attempts were to simply make a proxy Barracks and to mass some reapers asap and attack the protoss before they could get Adepts. Some games it works, mainly because of the aoe power of their grenades. But as soon as an Adept comes onto the field, your reapers are *fucked*.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, Protoss has *options*. If he so desires, once the toss sees that you’re making a few reapers, he can throw down a Starport and make an oracle or two, and you’ll have *nothing* to stop it. So in TvP, it’s almost like you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.

Then I played a few games, rushing for Banshee. I figured, they’re the natural hard counter to Adepts, so why not start with a little 1-1-1 action and go for cloak. But that didn’t work out well for me, either. Why? Because photon overcharge on a nexus, and your banshees can’t really do damage. While the adept counter attack is still a viable option for the protoss player.

The state of the game is seriously fucked right now.

The worst part about it is that the protoss player can get adepts and oracles without too much trouble. But the defense against adept/oracle player from the terran player’s point of view is fucking impossible. You’d need Marauders, turrets, bunkers, and preferable a Viking, too. All of which are really only good for defense. And even if you do defend perfectly, the toss is left with viable units to incorporate into his army and keep map control, while you’re probably stuck on one or two base without really being able to counter attack.

I mean, is there a unit I’m forgetting? Is there something I haven’t tried? Taeja went for a CC first, which I think is fucking insane. But it was something he was always able to get away with. Until LotV at least. It really makes me sad to see my hero, a man who I *still* think of as the God of the game, to fall so far from grace.

Basically, as a Terran player, you now have to wall off against toss. You probably need Planetary fortresses. And you have to do damage with a mine drop, or cloaked banshee. Thanks to photon overcharge, those are really your only two options.

And here I was, just a few hours ago, thinking I’d be able to write a nice blog post about how to counter Adepts. But like all the other Terran players in the world, I find myself brought to my knees by the unit. 

2 Gateway Adept Rush, ftw

So today, for the first time in a long time, I was able to log into StarCraft 2 and have a few games. Nothing had been stopping me before, really, except for a lack of desire to play. But if you’ve been watching StarCraft recently, you’ll have seen on twitch.tv a lot of Archon mode tournaments I’m not sure whose behind those tournaments, but I’ve enjoyed watching them. One thing's for sure. the pros still have a lot of ground to cover when it comes to mastering Archon mode.

But what really got me to log into StarCraft was the Blizzard launcher. Which I was only looking at because I have been gifted by Blizzard a free week of WoW time. But anyway, I see a clickable ad, something about StarCraft’s five year anniversary. Now if you’re familiar with Blizzard games, you’ll know that they love to give free shit to people who log in on certain days. So I logged into StarCraft but I didn’t appear to get any sort of icon. I tried the regular old HotS and Beta LotV, but nothing. Maybe I was too late.

So I play a few games as random and what do I find? A really nice little rush built for a Protoss. It’s nothing so out of the ordinary, per se. But it is a nice little character study in their new Adept unit.

Basically, you make a pylon with your first probe You take a single gas. You build a second gateway after your cyber core. Then, you start pumping out waves of Adepts, rallying them towards your opponent’s base.

It certainly worked against me in a PvP game where I had intended to give gate. Do you hear that? This little two gateway adept rush can counter a five gate pretty handily. Which is why I think it has a lot of potential. Finally, toss has the harass/scout early game unit they really need. I immediately tried out the build in the next match I played as toss. That wound up being a PvT, and the T had walled off. So the rush was kinda race countered. But I did get a lot of scouting for my effort. Most terran players will make marauders,which really such against adepts. And I kept that terran player to a single base for a very long time, while expanding behind that harass.

So yeah, adept rushes, deal with ‘em.

I also have to take the opportunity to talk about the new Legacy of the Void release, which is upcoming. You see, I just got burned. Hard. By buying the new Mortal Kombat X game on PC. It sucked so bad, I wound up buying a PS4 just to play the frigging game. And the conclusion I came to was never, ever, prepurchase your video games, especially if they’re on the PC.

As a matter of fact, why had I been so stupid in the first place to ever preorder a game like that? Then I realized the answer. It was because, before MKX, pretty much every game I play is a Blizzard game. And let’s give some credit to the Blizz guys, they make *solid* games.

This is one instance where it’s the rest of the industry that is to blame. They’re the ones that have deadlines and have to rush things. And in a way, you really can’t blame them. They have to deal with issues that Blizzard never would have to, like having to coordinate with console versions.

But knowing what I know now about how gaming is for PC vs Consoles, I’m really put in a tight spot. Basically, the only reason why I have a bulky old fashioned, plug into the wall PC anymore is that it can play StarCraft. That’s literally the only thing it can do that my phone can’t. But without that advantage, there’s little reason to keep those dinosaur PCs around. It makes a lot of sense to me now that the future of gaming really should be on a console. And what’s the problem? I mean, consoles have usb ports now. It’s not hard to plug your keyboard and mouse into a console and play StarCraft 2 (WarCraft 4, if you catch my drift).

MKX

Tell me this isn’t a transitory time for StarCraft. So the Beta is now live, and if you go to twitch.tv at any time other than a tournament, that’s what’s getting the most views.

It’s kind of funny how human psychology works. But I think I speak for all StarCraft fans when I say, we’d rather be playing the Beta.

It makes sense when you think about it. Nothing like coming out with the beta to make HotS look stale. I’ve finally reached that point in my skill of the game to feel like I have it mastered. I want to play the Beta. But I can’t. Last night I watched Parting play as protoss and destroy a terran using only Tempests.

Now the StarCraft world doesn’t exist in a bubble. So I wasn’t surprised to see InControl demoing the new Mortal Kombat X on twitch.tv. I just assembled myself a new PC specifically to play Mortal Kombat X (and StarCraft back on high settings).

When MKX comes out next week, do you think I’m going to spend much time on HotS anymore? If StarCraft is a balloon, then you can hear it deflating.

When I wake up in the mornings, I watch twitch.tv StarCraft. The players this morning, well, they had some big names, like Zest. But I also saw a lot of B league players and names I’ve never heard of before.

I want to mention that I even bought a fight stick. So I’m kinda ready to make the transition out of StarCraft for a while, too. One more week, and then Maul’s StarCraft 2 blog will likely achieve nirvana and never be updated again.

Don’t be surprised to find a link to this writer’s typings about MKX and, when it’s ready, LotV.

#signsofthevoid

As we get closer to the release date, and I see more #signsofthevoid I can’t help but think that the whole StarCraft community is retracting a bit.

For one, when I click on the find match button, it sure is taking a lot longer than usual. That can only mean fewer players queuing for games, right?

And soon, Blizzard will be giving out Beta keys. Of course, we all want to get one. And if there is anyone at Blizzard in charge of Beta keys reading this, please, please, give me one. I’ll play your game and test it and it will be totally awesome. I’ll find a great and important bug for you, and you’ll wonder why you didn’t let me into the Alpha.

In other news my Protoss play is still doing quite wonderful. My Warp Prism 5 Gate attack continues to destroy Terran and Zerg players. I don’t think I’ve ever tried for that attack in a PvP.

But what I’m really proud about is my Terran play. After watching the GSL, I’ve really improved a lot in my TvZ. I can now open with three reapers, into hellions, into a massive hellbat timing attack that leaves many Zergs without an answer.

As a matter of fact, one of the only matchups I don’t get is ZvP. It’s funny, because my only chance in this matchups seems to be early, one base pushes. But the build I most like to use is Byul’s 15 pool into two base expand. Part of my problem is that I know I can’t defend a cannon rush if I open hatchery first. I simply don’t have the skills. So I open with the less economical pool, and try to make up for it by taking a fast third. The problem is that the Protoss always either attacks and crushes me, or else he builds a deathball army that I’m incapable of dealing with.

My style of playing StarCraft is more of an attack and do damage as quickly as possible. I hate to drone up just because I know my opponent is on two base. I feel that you should never win a game in late, if you can win it in the early.

But also, by making a quick attack, you can dictate the pace of the game. I guess its just one of those matchups that will never really work for me. If you do a little roach push, there’s a good chance that he holds it using a StarGate. Which will in turn force you into hydras, which will be countered by his colossi. It’s a difficult puzzle that I simply haven’t figured out yet. It really would be nice if they give zerg more harassment options in the early game.

In other news, I’ve purchased a new computer. The main reason behind this was that I want to be able to play Mortal Kobat X when it comes out next month. But it also has the added benefit of allowing me to play StarCraft in high res, which will be super sweet to have, especially with LotV on the horizon.

Platinum Promotion

So yesterday, it finally happened. I was promoted into Platinum league. I knew it was coming. You can always tell when you’re about to get a league advancement, becuase the system will start matching you against plats. I wasn’t winning at first, but I made it.

The funny part is that I never got to see the actual promotion. Probably because I’m playing on a shit computer with a shit video card. But this patch, I get a blank screen whenever I press ESC or menu. It’s like the screen just blanks whenever the screen changes. I can still play, but to exit the game I have to hit the windows key and close the window from outside of the program. Same thing went for the league promotion. I was matched against  plat, won, and then the screen went black. But I knew it was the promotion screen.

One of the best parts about the promotion was the circumstance. You see, my worst matchup by far is TvZ. My win percentage was somewhere in the 20% range. So I wasn’t too excited to see myself matched Terran versus a platinum zerg. The map was Catallena. Now I love the map Catallena. I love the video of the Korean girl group that they always play on Basetrade TV. But Catallena is also one of my most losingest maps.

It is, however, a good map for a proxy two rax. Which I did. If you can get three bunkers down, you can probably kill the hatchery, which I did. My opponent played it out, and I eventually won with auto turrets. But let’s face it, I won off a proxy two rax.

My opponent whined, “Auto turret OP.”

What’s even better is that someone from my guild noticed, and congratulated me. I never do anything with guilds, and yet someone out there in the StarCraft world noticed, and took the time to say so. It was a good day.

That being said, my previous Toss strategy of prism 5 gate … it hasn’t been going so well in Platinum. As a matter of fact, in Plat, it’s more of a scout than an attack. Oh well, it was nice in gold while it lasted.

StarCraft and Pull Ups

So I got this big idea the other night. I was imagining the spin class that my girlfriend goes to. Where all of the equipment is setup in a circle, and every so often the blow a whistle and the girls all change stations like a clock.

And I was thinking, what if guys had a way to exercise like that. But instead of all work out, they’d need to have some video games in there, to keep me interested. So what if there were video games at every other station?

I wonder if that kind of a gym would get the geeks to exercise. Why not try it out on myself first?

So the only thing I have in my house to exercise with is a pull up bar. I decided to do a set of pullups before every game of StarCraft I play. The results, so far, have been encouraging.

The first thing I learned is, I can only do so many pull ups. Which is a good thing, because there are actually three ways to do pull ups. In order to play more StarCraft, I now have to exercise all of my upper body muscle groups.

It’s funny, because I wind up exercising more, but playing StarCraft less. Sure, I’ve cheated a few times. But I’ve also had a few days where I could really feel the improvement, too.

The second best benefit I’ve found is that my wrist no longer hurts after playing too much. I’m not sure if this is a result of averaging fewer games. Or if somehow the stresses of doing pull ups can help to round out your typical repetitive motion injuries.

When I can’t do anymore pull ups, I do push ups. I’ll do triangle push ups, even elevating my feet on the couch to make the angle more difficult. In this way, I have a routine I can pretty much carry out each time I’d want to play a game, cycling through the different upper body muscle groups.

But now for the best part. I’ve been winning more! Isn’t it grand? I’ve even won a TvP, one of the most difficult matchups for me.

I think one of the reasons why I’ve been winning more, is that doing that exercise really makes you think about the game you’re going to play. It makes you less likely to take a chance you know you shouldn’t, or to simply stop caring. When you do a set of pull ups to earn a game of StarCraft, you really care about the game.

Then there’s the heart rate factor. Of course, I love to drink coffee. I drink coffee all day. And nothing is better than a little caffeine before a game of StarCraft. But you can’t play every game on a caffeine high. Sometimes the timing can be off. Doing twenty push ups really gets your blood pumping. It’s like an ersatz cup of joe, before every game. Somehow, it really helps me to focus and deliver my A game. I wouldn’t be surprised if I got out of gold league soon. If I switched from Random to Protoss, I could leave gold whenever I want to.

Proxy Five Gate

So I’ve been playing in Gold League this season. I’m not sure why but the apparent cause is that players are leaving the game in such large numbers, that the league player distribution tends towards rank decay. In other words, if you were Diamond at the height of the popularity of the game, there’s a good chance you’re Plat or Gold now.

Since the leagues were always just a cosmetic feature of the game, and never really correlated to a player’s MMR, I have to say I feel this was a big mistake from Blizzard. I would have preferred to stay in Diamond league, once I attained that level. You want to keep my MMR hidden? You want to give me the illusion of being better at StarCraft than I am? Fine, then don’t demote me from your meaningless league.

I have enjoyed more victory than usual in my new league. For some reason, this season, I’m having a lot of trouble against terran. And I can’t figure out why. TvT used to be my best matchup. Now it’s my worst. Surprisingly, toss is now my best race. But I was still losing against terran players.

Call me a dinosaur, but one of my best PvT builds was a five gate. I can execute that built without even trying. But lately, my five gates have been shut down by terrans. And shut down hard.

So I devised a new strategy, just for PvT. And I haven’t lost yet. I call it the Proxy Five Gate.

You start off with a standard, one base build. I like to always take both gases, and put two probes in each until I have full saturation. Normally, when your Cybernetics Core is done, you would built a mothership core. I delay the Core in order to built a Robo first. Depending on the map, I may proxy the Robo. Then I proceed very much like a regular five gate.

It’s important to built a Zealot and Stalker in this built, and to poke at the front of your opponent’s base. Warpgate research finishes about the time you would get a Warp Prism. I usually fill the prism with two zealots and two sentries. Then, you do one more poke at the front of his base with your stalker. This time, it’s a diversion. If you time it right, he’ll be rushing to catch that Stalker right about the time you’re dropping and warping in units in his main. Depending on the map and army positions, you can sometimes FF him out of his own base! Or out of his natural.

This attack works because in the current meta game, Terran is encouraged to have a strong front line. Typical protoss attacks involve using an Oracle. Blink favored maps are out of style, so in general Terran players aren’t expecting an attack at this point in the game from anywhere other than the front of their base, or an Oracle flying in.

The advantage of attacking away from bunkers is enough to win the game.

Enjoy.

PS - What happened to the traveling pro players and tournaments that used to happen? It’s like they’ve dried up and now everything is either in Korea or online. I’m sure this effect is as simple as a major sponsor pulling his support. But I must’ve missed the memo on the details.

Spawning Location Rules

I want to talk about a shortcoming in StarCraft that everyone is aware of, but few people talk about.

The loading screen before a match. You know, the screen, where you see the map you’re about to play on, along with the name and race of your opponent. The problem is, this screen is inconsistent, and often missing vital information.

First, the inconsistencies. Sometimes, this screen loads, showing a very nice high resolution photo of the map you’re about to play on. But other times, it shows a very low resolution picture of the map. I can’t understand why. A game like HotS should *always* display a beautiful picture of the map you’re about to play on.

Second is the missing information. Because when the screen loads with high resolution pictures, the map displays all possible spawning locations. But not so when I get the low resolution pictures.

What’s worse, is that showing me the spawning locations isn’t good enough. We need to know the spawning rules as well. What do I mean? On a map like Deadwing, there’s nothing to indicate that horizontal spawns have been disabled. As a result, I’ve watched online tournaments on Twitch.tv where the casters are confused, and don’t understand this simple, yet highly important point.

Hell, back in WoL, I’m embarrassed to admit that I checked disabled spawning locations for *months* without realizing there was a reason why my opponent never spawned there.

TL;DR Blizzard needs to give us the spawning location rules for each map played, i.e. tell us if certain spawns are disabled, and we should always see a high res picture at the loading screen.