StarCraft 2

You're lookin at a new Masters leaguer

In 3v3

Parting to SKT T1, KT loses out on lottery

Squirtle Leaves Startale

SKT1 totally needed another toss powerhouse and with Squirtle leaving, I'm a bit worried about Startale.

Startale still has a lot of really good players though. Also a ton of good sponsors, so I'm assuming they'll still be okay.

Code S Groups:


No real group of death that I notice. Sad that MKP, Keen & MVP are all in the same group because I'd like all 3 to advance. I think Stephano stands a good chance to advance, he should be able to beat both of those terrans. Innovation is strong but meh, he's figured out by now imo.

Bogus, man.

Sniper will crush our dreams and eliminate both Bomber and Huk unless something crazy happens, it's crazy when a group with 3 zergs means I have my doubts about Creator advancing, Taeja should cruise through his group unless his hand gets worse. MC will probably not advance, but it's MC so who the fuck knows. I'm going to make a fool out of myself I'm sure, but MVP doesn't have a lock on ro16 either.

Group A:
Life
ByuL

Group B:
Leenock
MC

Group C:
Bomber
Sniper

Group D:
Yoda
Squirtle

Group E:
Parting
Byung

Group F:
MVP
MKP

Group G:
NesTea
Taeja

Group H:
DRG
Stephano

I actually think Roro and Keen have a great shot of making it out of group F, but the mkp and mvp fanboy in me just has to root for those two. This GSL is also the GSL that Bomber makes it far, he'll probably play god-mode til Ro4 then just crash and burn with a 0-3 or something lol.

What have you all been waiting for, new dances !

What custom games are you guys into?

Just had an early candidate for "Retarded Build of the Year"

TvP on Star Station

Toss scouts on 9
Puts down pylon to block my rax @ front (I just make it elsewhere) -- cancels
Double gas steal
Puts down pylon to block my rax @ front (again, this time finishes ... again I just make raxes elsewhere)

While all this was going on he went for a super delayed 1Gate FE (his gases saw my CC and 2 of my raxes) right into Stargate.

I went 1Rax CC into 4 naked raxes

I arrived at his natural with around 12 marines w/ 4 raxes rallying and he had 2 zealots to his name and a sentry that finished as I was already up his main

Go figure, tenks cheesing the beta ladder too. Spam those marines and 1a to victory!!!

Finally got around to getting a beta key, now whether to switch to zerg or go on with toss...

Hrmm, 2 base allins still seem to work just fine

Zaphid.795, add me for some games !

Or be a man and play the UP race

I might, but not until I manage to pull together more than whopping 75 APM in my first match.

Terran was actually pretty decent until they removed the healing beam upgrade. Now late game TvP is back to being dick punchingly frustrating to play. I'm actually going to try out some different unit compositions later this evening to see how it works out. Plan will be:

*Open Rax CC
*+2 Rax, +2 gas
*Tech @ 25g -> Stim
*Ebay -> +1
*Double Reactors @ 100g
*Factory -> Reactor
*Port <=> Factory
*+2gas @ nat
*Timing poke w/ 2 medis while adding ebay, armory and CC. [possibly just armory & cc, depends on gas consumption]

The attack with MMM is mostly to keep the Toss honest and to possibly deny a third. In general stim, shields and +1 is good enough to confront a Protoss army in open combat at this phase of the game. I'll also figure out his build.

From there:

*Factory <=> Reactor Rax
*+1 Factory <=> Reactor Rax
*Techs on both Rax
*No more factories, consider adding 2-3 more raxes. Probably 1 more Tech and 2 reactor.

From there I'll be making Marauder/Hellbat/Viking if he's Colossus tech. Else I'll be making Marauder/Ghost/Hellbat/Medivac. I'll be interested to see how it works. Basically the most common build at the moment in HOTS, which is sick effective and faceroll to pull off, is open Gate/Core/Nexus/Robo/Forge then move into Colossus tech. Which I guess is 3Gate 1Robo. Once the three are made you switch into Templar tech then keep moving back and forth. Hardly new but still super effective. I felt with healing beam upgraded Medivacs it gave us flexibility because the MMM could deal with both compositions. Now we're back to having to guess how much and what to make out of the Port. I'm feeling like Hellbat could counter these huge Zealot swarms I'm seeing in my games. And since the latest patch unupgraded Hellbats do 30damage per shot to Zealots o.0 Their beefy HP pool should also mean they don't instantly erupt to the large AOE Protoss throw at the bio ball.

Gas first openings still work exceptionally well in beating 1 gate FE builds. Protoss think MsC will keep them safe from early aggression, and tend to build very greedy. Do something like:

12 Refinery
14 Barracks
Factory, Marine when Barracks finishes.
Reactor on Barracks when you have 1 Marine.
Starport as soon as Factory finishes, make Hellions from Factory and Marines from the reactored rax.
Medivac as soon as Starport finishes.

When your Medivac pops out, load up your Marines (you'll have 7) and head for the opponent's base. You can also start your expansion at this point. Time it so you send your 3 Hellions into their natural at the same time you're dropping in their main. This build is very effective right now because most Protoss players delay starting warpgates a few seconds in favor of immediately starting their Mothership Core. You typically end up starting Starport construction at the same time they start warpgates research, which means your drop will arrive well before warpgates are finished, and you can do huge amounts of damage if not just kill them outright. They'll probably scout your Hellions headed for their base, but who cares? If they went 1 gate FE, they'll have 3 units at this point plus their MsC, which can't hope to fight what you just brought in. They'll have to pull probes to keep from dying which lets your Hellions massacre them.

I don't like playing like that because I have to assert my gas-before-rax way before the Toss asserts his 1Gate FE. I generally don't like playing that way. And I'm looking for answers to Toss in the late game with this build I'm not very interested in just running in for a vulnerable timing on a build I'm only guess he'll do. I also think this would die a pretty harsh death to 4gate. I don't know if I explained above but 4gate has seen a massive comeback into vogue in HOTS. The Toss are now able to execute it and as long as they pull out if you defend it they just double expand behind a MSC while cutting all Gateway production. So I need a build that can reasonably deal with that event.

Not saying your outlined build wouldn't work against 1Gate FE. I'm sure it would. But I like to play 1 build per matchup so I don't like working in stuff to blind counter suspected things.

Toss is pretty sick in HOTS atm, rolled quite a few master Zergs with it so far. Tempests are basically free wins

VRs with mothership core are fair amount of bullshit too, throw in 7 gates for allin and it's curtains 11-12 minutes in.

Seed vs SuperNova HOTS showmatch tonight in 1.5 hours.

For anyone not actively following HOTS those are the undisputed two best at their respective races on the HOTS ladder.

I only caught the last game but that tank push looked pretty good, shame he ran into storm.

Seed pretty much raped Nova all the 4 wins.