Focus

So where has it been going wrong?

I’ve been in gold league since I stopped blogging last summer. I feel that there are a few reasons for this, but a big one is that the community as a whole is getting better at the game. I’m a better player now than I was back then, and yet I’ve stagnated. The purpose of this blog is to enable me to get better at a faster rate than everyone else.

I have been a mech player in TvT and TvZ for some time. I don’t particularly like mech in terms of its “look and feel”, but I do think it’s easier to play.

In TvP I experimented with mech for some time, but I could never really make it work and so I do what everyone else does – bio plus medivacs and vikings. I really dislike the pure bio style in this matchup – I hate that you can’t control space, and that the protoss can just kill you with his tech. You have to go bio because gateway units crush everything else, but as soon as the protoss gets colossus or HTs then you need exactly the right kind of counter tech and you need to use it perfectly, or you are just dead.

Anyway, enough QQ. This is about positivity – what can I do differently.

I want to play a marine-tank-medivac style in all three matchups. So that’s what I’m going to do, even if I lose games while I'm getting the hang of the style. My opening I think will be a 1 rax FE in every matchup – that keeps it simple and I can practice refining the build and gameplan.

So – how to get there? I think I need a more focussed approach to my practice, so my new schedule when I get online will be:

1) Begin with some micro exercises – either a marine split, or one of the micro trainer maps.

2) Build order and multitasking training. I will spend 15 mins practicing my build order in a custom game with no opponent. The idea is that you rally your units to the centre of the map, and only look at your base for a split second to build something, then switch back to your army.

3) I’ll then play 2 to 3 games, although I’ll stop if I lose 2 in a row.

4) I’ll pick one game and analyse it on here.

5) I'll play 1 more game to try to put right what I did wrong.

Hopefully this will help me improve.

Marine-tank gameplay

The goal of marine-tank play is to take up a good map position and force the opponent to attack into your tanks. Meanwhile you trade marines for your opponent's gas units and harrass via drops to try to damage their economy and tech.

So my goal will be to expand quickly and to protect that economy from early aggression. I will get my infantry upgrades and tech and once I have that I will try to move out.

I won't try to push and win, but the goal will be to contain my opponent on two bases while I take a third and get a supply lead. All the time I'll keep trading small squads of marines for damage to my opponent.

I will try tonight, and my next post will be my first draft build order.