Life in the Middle 23/04/2012

Another week gone and I can't seem to decide on what strategies to use, so I have been trying a lot of new stuff out, especially versus Zerg and Terran. I think Zerg will take me a long time to finally figure out as it is the race I struggle with most on a fundamental level; I just can't deal with Banelings or attacking on creep and often end up throwing games I am way ahead in. I have my last big exams coming up so I have been struggling to play as much as I used to; though post University unemployment should be a great excuse to practice loads and hopefully finally get into Diamond. 

Bio is great but it is nice to have Siege Tanks to back  them up when your opponent goes for pure bio.

In TvZ I have been trying a new build where I go Hellions into two Starport Banshee, and it either works, or everything goes to hell. I normally try to hit with four Banshees with cloak, but just a couple of spore crawlers can completely shut it down as Queens are so good versus Banshees. I think that Hellions may give away that Banshees are a possibility, but they seem necessary to stop creep spread, which slows down any ground follow ups. I think I may get out a Raven in the future to use with the Banshees to kill creep, and then get out Siege Tanks for the follow up; I'm still experimenting a lot with what works bests.

Unexpected Banshees are so good; I try to hide my buildings as best I can to keep the element of surprise.

My new TvZ strategy came from trying it out in multiplayer one day when I couldn't be bothered to play normally and decided to go sky Terran instead. The biggest problem I'm finding with sky Terran is that both Mutas and Infestors counter it quite well in the mid game. Is it worth getting out mass Vikings to deal with Mutas? One on one Vikings win, but then they do cost more too, and Mutas have glaives. Ravens are good to cut back the creep but their abilities don't seem that great versus Zerg as most of their units outrun Seeker Missile and PDD doesn't affect Zerglings, Banelings or Raoches; which are often the meat of the Zerg army.

Apparently I played EGHuK and RatZDeezer this week, I have my doubts though.

Until recently I was going bio against Terran but I kept getting destroyed by one base Seige Tank pressure, so I have been going one Rax fast expand into Seige Tanks instead. I don't like Siege Tanks as much as when I first started playing as they are slow and cumbersome and don't really fit with the more active play style I have been going for. I feel like if you go bio you have to play a lot better, be a lot more proactive with your units, and repeatedly win engagements to stay on top; against Diamonds I don't feel like I can do this.

Just a couple of Siege Tanks is great to fall back on, but by this point I was way ahead anyway.

My TvP hasn't changed much but I have been enjoying it a lot more recently; I used to dread going up against Protoss to the point where I didn't want to play. I used to always be afraid to engage a Protoss army and always made them come to me, but recently I have become a lot more aggressive; attacking early expansions and denying thirds. I played an awesome game the other day where I got out Ghosts and nuked a lot, killing 32 probes over all, and even though I lost in the end it made me a lot more comfortable using Ghosts. However, I still lose a lot to early unscouted High Templars and struggle to use Ghosts effectively without cloak.

I've never really managed to use nukes effectively before, I would have won this game but I took an engagement really badly and lost two mining bases.

One thing I'm struggling to understand at the moment is why Siege Tanks do friendly fire damage. Ling, Baneling, Muta is effective enough without you killing your own troops at the same time, and it makes Broodlords so much harder to deal with. Maybe I am missing something and it really is necessary? Thank you very much for reading, you can follow this blog from the pane to the right and find me on Twitter here.