Day 4 - What Defense?

Game 1 - Shamoo (T) on Shakuras Plateau

My weak point against Terran is that I don't defend against anything at all.

Literally.

I'm thinking I need to start throwing up a spine or two at my nat if I'm trying for two base muta play. I've been trying to defend with some speedlings + banelings but I just don't make enough.

The funny thing about this game is I made the guy do a double-take with his scouting SCV; I always send an overlord to one of the other bases then scout the other two with a drone, then float my overlord to just outside their nat where they can't really see it but it can see if there's an SCV mining things there, and especially if they take those gases.

My overlord started heading towards his nat the second his SCV scouted the base I'd send the overlord to scout to begin with. This caused him to turn his SCV around thinking he'd somehow just completely missed my base. This meant that by the time the SCV got to my base, my lings were out, and he then wasted a scan to scout. This also meant that he didn't know I'd just expanded. I also took this opportunity to put down a baneling nest.

Unfortunately, pretty much however you slice it, a 2 basing Zerg without much to defend with pretty much always loses to the gigantic freaking bio ball breaking down their front door. I did see it coming, but I managed to forget to change the rally point for attack units from my main to my ramp, and left half my lings over in my main where they weren't doing anything.

-12 points!

Game 2 - Sevy (T) on Shakuras Plateau

Well, I flew my scouting overlord the wrong way and it got sniped; fortunately, I'd seen that loss coming and started another one the second it began to be fired on, so it didn't cause me any problems.

He went, rather oddly, for 2 factories and 2 barracks - something he couldn't really keep up. He mostly left me alone, which was a big, big mistake on his part.

See, I'd learned a bit from my mistakes on the last game, and so I build more lings to defend my ramp should he push. He waited, and waited, and didn't push, and didn't push. I got my mutas up and he still hadn't pushed. At this point in time the supply was exactly even at 58-58, which is deceptive; I had 20 more workers, he had 20 more supply in units. However, I had mutas and banelings, he had a bio ball backed up by a seige tank.

My first 5 mutas hit, and he sent 4 marines to try to deal with it. I did what is perhaps my best bit of micro to date and forced a stim before running away; I swooped back in (although a little too soon) and cleaned up his marines as their stim wore off, not losing a single muta in the process.

Bitchin'.

At that time he decided it would be a good idea to counter-attack. I had 5 banelings and 16 speedlings vs 15 marines, a seige tank, and 5 marauders. This heavily favors him, but I also had some more mutas on the way which I sent over there the second the battle started (I also turned my 5 mutas at his base around, figuring that I needed to hold off his attack and he would be dead anyways). He of course lost most all of his marines instantly to the banes, the speedlings surrounded the tank (and the ones that couldn't get around the tank caused him to splash damage a good number of his marauders), and the push was repelled really, really easily.

I then shoved my mutas down his throat.

+24 points!

Game 3 - IrishTank (P) on Xel'naga Caverns

I feel sorry for this guy. He's clearly really, really not good. And he fell victim to my new vs P policy.

Every time I play vs P, they go for cheesy shit like mass void rays, cannon rushes, and the like. So I've found a way around that. You see, they never wall off properly. Ever. They're also a bit slow on their timing. So I've been practicing my 7 pooling.

I find that on Xel'naga the initial 6 lings hit at ~3:00 each time. This guy hadn't even started on a gateway yet, rather sadly; he was producing really slowly. I rolled over him with ease.

And then he gg'd.

Let me back this up as to why this is impactful at all; normally when I do this, they quit out (and I would imagine swear angrily in real life) without any courtesy towards me whatsoever. This guy, who is almost certainly just out of placement, gg'd me on his way out. I wish I'd played a standard game against him instead.

<3

+16 points!

Summary:

Things went rather well today; I hit on things I can improve on in my already pretty good vs T play, managed to avoid vs Z play, and managed to avoid actually playing vs P. Up 28 points on the day, I am now 33rd in my bronze league with 83 points.

Stats so far:

vs Protoss - 2-1
vs Terran - 3-1
vs Zerg - 0-2

Shakuras Plateau - 1-2
Shattered Temple - 2-1
Typhon Peaks - 1-1
Xel'naga Caverns - 1-0