so i took this sketch of @Artosis
and painted it.
Who’s next? I was thinking of tackling a poker pro before another SC2 personality. For updates on what i’m working on follow Tumblr and on Twitter!
PartinG’s 1 Gate Blink build PvP
I’ve been streaming a lot lately using PartinG’s 1 gateway Blink opener, and a lot of people have been asking for the exact build order. Here it is!:
9 Pylon
13 Gateway
15 Gas
16 Pylon
18 Core
18 Gas (chrono boost nexus)
19 Zealot
22 Pylon
23 Mothership Core (chrono boost nexus, energy now empty)
23 Warpgate
25 Stalker
27 Twilight
Stalker
31 Gateway, Gateway
Blink (chrono boost it)
A few side notes:
Your Mothership Core leaves immediately to scout. Try and take a path where your opponent will not see it coming. Often times you can scout their full tech, and even kill a couple of probes, before you have to warp home or run. If you don’t have good intel by about 6:15, you should add a Robotics, because you can’t be sure your opponent is not going DTs, and at this time you will still be safe vs most DT builds.
I personally have been following this build up with a lot of Voidray transitions, but PartinG generally goes into Robotics, which is probably better. I suggest if you really want to use this build well, to go check out some PartinG PvPs from Proleague.
Of course, if you want to check out my stream, sponsored by Ttesports and iBuyPower, feel free to check out http://www.twitch.tv/artosis
GLHF!
A really awesome interview of one of the most inspirational StarCraft progamers. By far the oldest champion ever. Very well done by Jeff Alejos, director of Sons Of Starcraft.
META - episode 4!
I just got up the VODs and MP3s to episode #4 of my new show, META. For anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, it dives very deeply into the strategy and gameplay inside of StarCraft 2. This episode had myself, IdrA, CatZ, and iaguz, and is my favorite yet. Definitely worth a watch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW6REFJraGc
MP3s can be found here:
The most prolific headline-maker in StarCraft history has been removed from the richest and most famous team of the world and all I got to read about it was a couple of paragraphs of facts and an extended quote from the official statement. The real world is still in a galaxy far, far away from us.
PvZ - CranK’s +2 Blink Stalker Expand
Hey all, thought it was about time to post some new strategies on here since Heart of the Swarm has been out for a bit over a month already.
Today on my stream, sponsored by http://www.Ttesports.com (awesome sponsor, and maker of some of the most badass gaming peripherals ever), I ripped a build from Axiom’s CranK, a really great Protoss player. The build order follows:
9 Pylon in main
16 Nexus
17 Forge
17 Pylon
17 Probe
19 Gateway (3:28)
19 Cannon, Scout
20 Gas
21 Gas
(chrono Nexuses nonstop until mentioned otherwise)
27 Cybernetics Core
29 +1 attack
29 Zealot
33 Pylon
37 Pylon, Sentry, Warpgate
40 Gas x 2 at expansion
Chrono +1 attack on Forge
43 Mothership Core (Chrono it), Pylon
46 Twilight
Sentry
49 Pylon
53 Gateway x 3
55 Sentry
57 +2 Attack, Pylon, Blink
59 Robo, Pylon
Warpgate Finishes (8:11)
61 Gateway x 2
Warp-in 2 Sentries, 2 Zealots
Move immediately to 3rd base and make Nexus there (8:45)
Make observer then Immortal and +3 attack, as well as at least 1 defensive cannon at your new 3rd base.
Side note: Make sure you are scouting with hallucinated phoenixes semi regularly to spot incoming attacks and the tech of your opponent.
I’ve just started using this build, so I don’t have a guide on the follow-up branches, just this base to work with.
If you want to see me work on it, I stream almost daily at http://www.twitch.tv/artosis
Thanks for reading! :D
The Raised Skill Ceiling: HotS vs BW
What is a skill ceiling? Well I’m glad you asked! The skill ceiling is how high you can go with your skills. Why is it important? Another great question! The higher the skill ceiling, the more room there is to differentiate your skills from your opponent. The lower the skill ceiling, the more everyone looks the same.
StarCraft: Brood War has an almost impossibly high skill ceiling. Because of this, the level of play went upwards endlessly over the ~12 years that it was played professionally. Also because of this, the most skilled, talented, and hardest working players rose to ridiculous heights. Let’s talk about Flash, Jaedong, Bisu, and Stork in SC1 for a moment. These four players became much, much better than everyone else. With a constant 8-10 houses full of motivated and intelligent progamers with endless resources to learn from and silly amounts of practice time, 4 players became much better than everyone else.
You don’t understand how good flash was at SC1. His accomplishments don’t do his skill justice. Even if you were a huge fan, and watched every single game he ever played, you probably still don’t understand how good he truly was.
NonY had a perfect quote about Bisu. It was something like this:
You can’t understand what Bisu is doing unless you are fast enough to do it yourself.
He said it a bit more eloquently than I remember it, but the moment he said it, I got chills. With an almost endless skill ceiling, beautiful things are possible. Things so beautiful, that if you put in more time into the understanding of them, they will become more beautiful.
The most important factor in StarCraft 2’s life expectancy is a high skill ceiling.
Heart of the Swarm has, without doubt, raised the skill ceiling of SC2. By a lot. It will take time to see exactly how much, but it is definitely noticeable. And the funny thing is, it raised it in a very different way than SC1.
SC1 was about a lot of things: battling the AI, battling unit selection restrictions, macroing with single building selection, micro, macro, etc, etc. The list of course goes on and on.
SC2 made a much smarter AI that you don’t have to battle very much. Also, it has unlimited unit selection, so you don’t have to battle that (even though there is a bit of a trade-off with having to be more careful vs splash). SC2 also has multiple building selection, so the macro aspect is definitely easier.
Well, now we have a lot of other things to juggle. The amount of abilities used in HotS right now is pretty crazy. Imagine a standard PvT. Sentries with Force Field and Gaurdian Shield and a Mothership Core with Time Warp and Nexus Cannon, in the first ~6 minutes of the game. Soon after that’s followed by Blink on Stalkers and Storm and Feedback on High Templars.
There are a lot of examples in any matchup. Now this isn’t to say that SC2 is harder or easier, or that it has a higher or lower skill ceiling than SC1. That is a question that is going to take a lot of progamers a lot of time to answer.
I just wanted to write this because I’m so pleasantly impressed, both in my games and in others’ that I’ve watched, with the much increased burden given to players in Heart of the Swarm over Wings of Liberty. I’m so excited to see where this takes us.
IEM Excite. Group A.
The IEM World Championships start in just a few short days, and I have a building excitement inside of me to watch them which I haven’t felt for a tournament in a long time. With this being the first “for realsies” tournament in HotS, it may seem obvious why. While that is obviously a great contributor, there is far, far more. The off season is over. Every year in eSports, we have an off season starting around December, and ending around March. While StarCraft is finally getting so big that you can see some action even then, there definitely was a lot of time off for progamers. With a giant lack of travel, and fewer events to prepare for, the most hard-working pros will benefit greatly from this time period. It’s a big enough block to reinvent key pieces of your play, and to get an edge on anyone who takes it easy. I just love seeing who put in some extra time and effort, and what change that has made to their play.
Group A
Hasuobs -
Hasuobs is patient. Very patient. He will work on his unit composition all game long, and set up a great end game for himself. HotS has made Protoss much better for his style, in my opinion. Between the addition of the Tempest as an end-game siege engine, and the removal of an unbeatable Zerg late game, I feel like Hasu’s career is going to get a facelift in HotS.
sLivko -
One of my absolute favourite Zergs in WoL, I have always viewed sLivko as a player that cannot lose if undisturbed in the early game. With the power of his signature composition of Broodlord/Infestor being greatly nerfed, I don’t think this will be his best IEM tournament.
PartinG -
PartinG came up much in part due to Squirtle’s amazing brain and build orders, as well as his own micro. While no one doubts his prowess in WoL, will he be able to dominate in a world full of new strategies? Are his new teammates Rain, Bisu, and BeSt up to the challenge of helping him figure everything out like Squirtle did before?
YongHwa -
This Protoss badass has been innovating Protoss for years already. While IM was known for its brainy tosses YongHwa and Seed before, now MC lives with them. Oh yeah, and Squirtle joined the team as well. The one thing that scares me for YongHwa though, is how well Seed seems to have been doing in the beta. They are both brilliant Protosses, but their styles don’t mesh well. The challenge for YongHwa might be retaining his own style while utilizing the brains of all the ridiculously smart Protosses on his team.
Nerchio -
Nerchio was considered one of the best Zergs in Europe, even during the WoL beta. That means something, as Zerg was incredibly weak back then. I haven’t seen too much of his play in HotS yet, but if any European Zerg is going to be able to hold off all the new early game P and T tricks while keeping their macro going, it could be him.
LucifroN -
Every single time LucifroN has popped up, he has preformed amazingly. With his own style. With his own strategies. Nowadays he uses a lot of aggressive macro play, but back in the very beginning of SC2, he was as 1 base focused and cheesey as the best of them. This means he has a full range of skills to utilize Terran’s new units. Oh yeah, and he’s playing full time now. This is really his chance to show what he can do against Koreans.
Predictions:
LucifroN and YongHwa advance, 3rd player is too close to call.
If enough people let me know they enjoyed this write-up, I will do the other groups as well in the coming days.
HerO vs TaeJa DHW Finals, Game 1 thoughts.
As I catch up on all the games I didn’t get to see during my last big bunch of travel, I saw something beautiful. Something that I don’t think we see enough from Protoss of any level. Here are some quick thoughts on the game:
The map was Metropolis, and it seemed to me that throughout the series, but especially in this game, HerO had great mapped out responses to whatever TaeJa did.
The game starts out as standard as can be.
- Fast Expansions by both players.
- Denial of good scouting by both players.
- Fast 3rd CC by TaeJa
- Fast Robo by HerO
Nothing fancy there. HerO also opts to get a very fast Robotics Bay for Colossus tech. At this point, HerO still could have branched in a number of ways. He could have done a one Colossus build, he could have gone for Forges, he could have gone for a Colossus allin.
Then, at 8:22, still when HerO had just 3 gates and 1 Colossus building, his observer scouts exactly what TaeJa has done this game (3 fast CCs, slower Starport).
Immediately, HerO starts Thermal Lance, and adds 3 Gateways.
HerO then goes into a 48 Probe 2 base attack, using 3 ranged Colossus, 6 Sentries, 6 Zealots, and as many Stalkers as he can muster.
While this isn’t ground-breakingly extravagant or fancy, it is beautiful in its own way. With strong execution, especially on this map, it gives HerO an excellent chance to kill TaeJa at a very specific and somewhat easy to hit timing attack. With the fast 3 Colossus, HerO abuses the lack of Starport production time (not enough time to make Medivacs and Vikings). With the 3 very early Sentries (and 3 more added on after buying his Colossi as fast as possible), HerO abuses the relatively small choke point at TaeJa’s expansion.
Players often times get caught up in the way they play, or the way they think the matchup should go. This instant, decisive, and perfectly executed reaction is awesome to see, and shows one of the many reasons why HerO is one of the best in the world.
