Life in the Middle 22/10/2011

I've had a good week in the Platinum league; I've gone from having a very low win to loss ratio to having a much more respectable one in the course of a single week. Last week I was fearing relegation because of my poor performance and because I was being faced against people in Silver and Gold and mostly still losing. Just as it looked like I was about to be moved down to Gold I tried out a build by Mvp and started to win most of my games. I haven't had much time to play Starcraft since then, because of university, RAGE and Batman, but the games I did play were some of the most tense games I've ever played and I've been beating Gold and Platinum players. For those of you who didn't see my article where I tried out Mvp's 3 Rax build you can find that here.

The 3 Rax helped me get out more units in the early game.

This week my total win to loss ratio went up from 43% to 59% because I only lost three of the sixteen games that I played, I think that having a strategy from the start of the game is vital for success so that you can keep focus. I now think that learning at least one build for each match-up will help me improve my game even more. Last week I complained about playing against a high proportion of Terrans but this week has been a Zerg heavy week as 50% of the my opponents were Zerg. This week I have been disappointed by Zerg players for not taking map control and not making units; you can't do both, you need to know when the enemy moves out so then you can start generating loads of units as quickly as possible.

If I'm right outside your base and you've only just noticed it's too late.

I played a game against a Zerg who raged at me for playing off of one base, even when I went up to two, but the reason I managed to do so well against him was because he didn't know when I moved out to attack for the first time so didn't build enough units to defend. Even though I didn't defeat him straight away he kept raging in chat and didn't stay calm and rational and think about what he needed to do to beat me. I feel like the higher the league a Zerg is the more likely they are to just play the standard ling baneling mutas and so I'm less likely to get caught off guard. At the level I am at the moment standard play seems easier to deal with than some of the weirder strategies you see in the lower leagues.

Just me bunkering like a pro.

When you play Zerg it's all about having a good economy then making units like crazy to attack or defend, Protoss is about building a strong army and only expanding when you have to but with Terran you have to draw a fine line between making enough units to defend yourself and expanding enough to keep producing. As a Terren you also have to be aware of your positioning as individually your troops are weak and easily sniped but with proper placement can be unassailable. I played a TvT earlier where multiple times he walked his army into my siege tanks because he didn't know where they were but I always knew where his main force was so even though he managed to take more bases than me I was never in any real danger.

Better positioning helps me (blue) come out on top.

Half the battle in Starcraft 2 is an information war and knowing how to react to what you see. The more I play Terran the more useful the information I get is; if I scout hellion tank I go marauder tank, if I scout a 4 gate I go mass bio and so on. Though I still don't know how to react to many situations, for instance how do you counter four or five Colossus? I tried getting bio with support Vikings but got annihilated, maybe it was just a matter of positioning. I also don't know when to use what units. When can you use the Battlecruiser? When do you switch from Siege Tanks to Thors? And what units are most effective against what races? After more games I'm sure I will understand all this better but for now certain aspects of playing as Terran still mystify me.

Everything just went wrong and I was annihilated for the second time in this game. 

This week I've gone from rank 61 to 46. I'll do another update next week to let you know how life in the middle goes and I promise to play more games than this week. Please feel free to leave a comment and check back soon.

I'm slowly climbing my way up.