What league is this game in?

I just watched the replay.

The 10 forge+insta cannon is obviously really bizarre, but isn't proof in itself. Also, why would he form a full wall? If he was going for some "new" build where he goes forge+cannon+gate into a stargate expand, I'm almost positive that build would never involve a full wall off of your main base.

Probably the biggest reason for it looking like he hacked (imho) is at the 6:50 mark of the replay- you notice that he pans his camera over to outside your natural. At this point, he has zero reason to think you're in that base. Why else would he pan his camera over there? The only clues he has gotten so far as to where you might be are the following:

-drone scout positioning
-zergling run in positioning
-overlord (lack of) scouting)

Neither the drone nor the zerglings' positioning when they come into your base provide any clues at all as to where you are. It's a four player map, so he also can't time out where you are based on what time your units arrived. People also scout in weird ways with their overlords, so he can't possibly have known based on this.

The fact that he a+clicked his zealots and stalker toward your natural is slightly suspicious, but a good (mid masters+) player should be adroit enough to realize that if he move commanded his zerglings back to his base, that the pathing they took means you're in that base.

I'd be interested to see what some higher level players than me think of this, but I think it's at least 85% or so that he was screenhacking you in some way.

Here he seems to move his voidrays away from my queens before they come into vision. Obv not conclusive, but looks suspect given the rest of the game.

Opponent is high diamond: http://sc2ranks.com/us/3590123/Theory

Yeah. We're at the same level. The people I play with would never have known that ****.

was running good this month so took a shot at 25/50 and obv lost a stack instantly.
Time for ladder!

Jangbi vs. Zero OSL Ro4

Sick, sick game one of the better BW games and comebacks I've seen (though not a huge BW guy)

Decided to look at this possible MHer's match history, and it seems a little more damning now. He has 3 games where he proxy 2 gates (I believe) on entombed and condemned ridge, and one time against a terran opponent, it happened to be against CC first. I'm going to try to contact the guys he played to see if I can get the replays.

i'd report him and post in the TL hacker thread

there's prob a lot of hackers in the high diamond ranger. that's about as far as you can go relying primarily on info you get from maphacking and not having any other skills. like i could type in chat what im doing to people while playing on my smurf and it wouldnt matter.

So what kind of hacking takes place in SC2? Does Blizzard have anti-cheat mechanisms in place?

I feel like the optimal way to cheat would probably be to have some kind of memory-scanning process that shows a map of the game + assorted info on another monitor, not to actually draw stuff in your game window that shouldn't be there. But mostly, LOL Blizzard for allowing this sort of thing to happen.

Some guy on MsSpyte's stream the other day accused her of hacking (and was very convinced of it) when she scouted his proxy rax behind tall grass on Entombed or Condemned (forget which).

It's not poker where the information is independent, it's pretty much impossible to prevent cheating in any multiplayer online game.

There are hacks which reveal all of the fog of war, put up enemy production tabs on your screen, automatically micro your blink stalkers, automatically exercise your macro mechanics (mules, injects, chronoboosts) and even have audio warnings for thing such as "DT shrine in production." They are very sophisticated and difficult to detect due to the fact that all information about the game is stored client-to-client. They typically ban the hackers in waves using Warden.

My guess is Blizzard catches most hackers by simply purchasing the hack from the sites that sell them and then reverse engineering a way to detect it. There are those who could easily fly under the radar if they quietly used hacks over a long period of time, but stuff like blink hack is readily apparent with even basic replay review. There were rumors for a while that a "top level zerg player who had won a bunch of real money tournaments but never appeared in anything live" was using hacks to do so, and the only name that fit this bill was Nerchio. I think it's readily apparent from last weekend that this was probably not the case.

Notable SC2 players who have been caught map hacking are Spades and Dragon.

Yeah, that's inherently problematic. I don't think it has to be that way, but it's certainly easier for Blizzard to do it like that.

http://drop.sc/218395

Can someone please tell me how the **** I'm supposed to beat the max protoss army on a map with multiple walk paths? I know I had bad infestor control in the last engagement, but how am I supposed to possibly make enough spines that he can't just walk around and go somewhere else? I pretty much spent my money fine and made enough drones.

Sure, ling infestor is a bad unit comp vs stalker/colossus/templar/immortal, but i thought that the 12 or so spines I had would at least buy me a little time to get some broods out. Apparently not

I usually try to beat Toss within 15 minutes or else type gg and leave

You need to revamp your early game scouting. Your initial overlord should most certainly go to where you'll find something (Or a lack of something) first, AKA where your opponent can forge expand. If you sent your ovy there, you could have just not taken your third, rather than cancelling it (This is debatable too IMO)

7:45 : You're saturated at 16/17 drones at your main. You should reset your drone rally. You get up to 28 drones on minerals in your main at one point, that's a lot of money lost.

9:45 - 10:20 : Infestation pit finished, but you didn't start pathogen glands yet. That is delaying you a good deal.

11:50 : You see the toss take the third right away. You should try to pull him apart by threatening ling runbys. Your opponent positioned himself right in between his bases, which is decent defense, but you could easily get a free mineral line/nexus kill with some good management. You have highly mobile & disposable units in your lings, but don't utilize this until much later in the game. You could also take a 4th much sooner due to this IMO

12:30 : Given your ling infestor style, I think this macro hatch could be sooner, especially if your economy management was better. This macro hatch could also just be your 4th as mentioned above.

17:00 : Good timing of brood lords & greater spire.
17:50 : Good deny of toss's 4th

As for the final engagement : You literally controlled this about as horrendously as possible. Having lings and infestors on one hotkey really hurts, and your positioning was a joke. You had no spine support, not that much buffering on the ground (Only 76 lings!), and really it was a near hopeless battle given the location. You also had only 4 brood lords, and your infestors served little purpose before they got obliterated (they got off only 2 or 3 fungals from what I see, and you had 14 of them).

Thanks. I knew I ****ed up the engagement incredibly poorly- do you think that if I had controlled my army well, I would have won that battle?

If by control well, you mean keep it near the spine crawlers, then possibly. Fungal + Spine + broodlord equals destruction. You also had spare energy for infested terran would help decently.

Now for a Zerg perspective:

0:22 - not saying glhf back to a Protoss opponent. Good choice and very well done.

3:30 - you need to be checking the secret cannon spot behind that 3rd with an ol to make sure you don't get hurt with a cannon rush. that said, a queen can hit the cannon from above ground

3:40 - i dont like where you sent your first ol. your first ol should always go right at the nat. protoss players are going to FFE 95% of the time on this map and if they don't, you want to have an OL conveniently located to spot when an expo goes up. if they do FFE obv you can spot gas timings, see it's an FFE and all that to start

ok now we spot that he didn't FFE and in lieu of cancelling our 3rd, we actually just go ahead and take our nat

we're 100% dead to a 4 gate or any 1 base build really. if he probe scouted properly (which he didn't), he could just flat out kill you. i really don't think you can feel comfortable taking a quick 3rd on this map UNTIL you see a nat out of the toss. it's possible you can just sit on the 3rd and the main for a while, i dunno, but really you should just cancel your 3rd and take your nat.

gateway expands are so bad economically that it's not a huge deal to do this. you can then use mass queens to take a 3rd once you safely see his nat.

just as i type that we cancel the 3rd, but that was rather alte. as soon as we peek that gas in his main with our first ol (which should be going at his nat and not his main) we need to instantly cancel. i'd also start a spine on the edge of my creep in the main and take a gas which you did both of, so good. just a little slow is all.

2 spines are not necessary, especially once you spot the nat going down.

i dont like your decision to stay on 2 base, which you essentially commit to by taking the 2nd gas.

7:47 - this toss has mined a ****ton of gas (our OL saw the geysers in the main and how early trhey went up) and is only showing 3 sentries at the front of his base. now, using my cheat "e" key to see everything i can see he's just bad, but normally this makes me afraid of hidden tech such as DTs or void rays.

8:35 - big ol nasty supply block, sitting on a lot of larva and only 44 harvesters. we should have a lot more harvesters and a 3rd at this point. i see you are going 2 base lair, but on this map really... just take a fast 3rd. you can still get to lair pretty quick.

11:26 - our scouting information shows that toss is almost certainly taking a 3rd. we see a bunch of sentries, a robo that hasnt made any units yet and he appears to be staging for it. we build a bunch of lings which is great, but then we are passive with them. when facing a gateway expo especially we should be dancing lings all around, trying run-bys and making him feel very uncomfortable as he takes his 3rd. if we are sure he is taking a 3rd (and we can be pretty sure at this point), he can never leave his base until he gets it secured. in that time we can get a 4th, go to hive, etc.

11:26 - also we have 66 drones at this point. we should likely be well over 70, prob at 85 with a 4th. you also need macro hatch if you are going to be ling heavy

12:08 - we see a 3rd... our instant reaction needs to be a 4th and hive as soon as we get 3/3 started. start your spire with your hive. you are really light on drones which sucks, but more on that later.

13:04 - so passive with your lings. you really need to be constantly poking and prodding him with them. i can almost guarantee you could have forced a cancel had you run them in there from the side as soon as the 3rd was built. you also may force him to warp in more sentries or stalkers, which delays tech. getting villain to warp in sentries past like the 830 mark in a game is a very good thing to see.

13:30 - with a lot of scouting we could se his army is absolute ****. i nfact, im pretty sure you can just win at this point.

13:30 - you are making 5 more infestors... you already have 7 and your 7th and 8th gasses aren't up yet. this will massively delay your tech. it is WAY WAY WAY WAY too early for neural parasite as well. start your spire at the same time as your hive...

13:30 - we also dont need spines because i mean really... the dude has no freaking army. i'd probably double expand here and THEN start building up a nice spine wall.

15:59 - our drone saturation is really bad. really need to be on like 85. overbuild drones early to turn them into spines later. ]]

16:47 - what, exactly, are our spines defending? i mean there is literally no reason for the toss to enter that area. he can freely attack our nat and 4th without even touching those spines. you need to spine up your 4th and attack from there. if he goes into your main, then you counter into his main. putting spines at the choke above your main is also an option.

16:47 - he has yet to take a 4th, but once he does these spines THEN become useful, but this toss doesn't look like he's too keen on taking a 4th quite yet. he also appears to have no clue what he's doing.

17:00 - our greater spire is done and we can morph at least 7 broodlords but... we then spend all our gas on more corruptors. i assume this is the point you lost the game, although taht perhaps came quite a bit earlier.

17:35 - we spot the 4th building and send our ligns to cancel it. good

17:57 - we have 3(1 morphing) broodlords, 10 corruptors and we are maxed... this isnt a good unit comp. our spines are relatively useless in the middle. we need burrow as well. our larva counts seem low at only 42. it also appears we don't have a clue what unit comp the toss has, but that's ok since we've countered it anyways (well... if thsoe corruptors were BLs.)

the big battle - 3 points here

1. the protoss army is in the low ground fully in our vision sitting in a ball for a long period of time. it's like he's trying to lose. just chain fungal his entire army. there's nothing he can do.

2. yeah this engagement was really, really bad. you just moved all your stuff in to die. the whole point of BLs is that we don't move all our **** in to die. we let the bls pick away from a distance while we hold everything in place with fungals. however, we had a bunch of worthless corruptors and 3 BLs, which makes that a little difficult. that said, i still feel like you should win this engagement. you need to practice your fungaling.

3. ragequit is a good move. this protoss is completely ****ing clueless and just effortlessly made his HEURRR DURR deathball and a-moved it. it takes a lot of skill for a zerg to micro bl/infestor to kill a 3 base deathball. it takes half a brain to move a deathball forward. he prob got to this level with no idea how the match up works... he just knows how to max out on 3 bases really well!!! (sadly, he wasnt even maxed...).

overall summary points:

-you stay on 2 base and go 2 base lair... and then do nothing with it. if you aren't going to be aggressive when he goes to take his 3rd, what's the point of staying on 2 base and going lair? just go 3 base.

-as a result, your drone counts are suppressed early on. if we are going to go 2 base lair, we have to do some sort of damage, threaten something, harass... anything! we do none of the above.

-thankfully, your opponent really doesnt like hitting the e key or usign chronoboosts, so this didnt get exploited too hard.

-need to be much more active on the map with your lings.

-good creep spread.

-early injects are good, late injects are not... this is essential with ling infestor.

-we need to expand and drone a lot harder once we see protoss has no army and is going to be passive.

-fungals are meant to keep armies at range when doing bl/infestor, not engage them in their face. i have "use the infestor melee attack!" disorder as well, so i do understand it, but it just takes practice and micro.

-buildign all corruptors and no BLs + that last engagement was the final nail in the coffin BUT

-early drone and macro problems opened the window for villain to even have a chance. we could have had that army a lot sooner, a lot bigger and with more bases if we took a quicker 3rd, droned harder and didnt start mining so much gas so early.

I approve

also time went to find replays for me of guys going BL/infestor against him with nice transitions, but came back 10 minutes later loling saying he couldnt find many. most zergs were trying to kill him by the 15:00 mark. this is still almost certainly the way to go rather than playing the WIN-A-VORTEX GAMBLING GAME, but sometimes that's not an option.

yeah the cannon rush threw me off. i go 3 base 100% of the time so I didn't really know what to do...and i had the gas so i decided to get a lair. probably bad reasoning.