Code S groups announced!

A - 4/19, Euro time
sOs vs. Impact
Losira vs. Innovation

B - 4/22, NA time
Ryung vs. Dear
Billowy vs. Byul

C - 4/26, Euro time
Maru vs. Super
Curious vs. Dark

D - 4/29, NA time
Alive vs. Creator
Zest vs. Gumiho

E - 5/3, Euro time
Soo vs. Trust
Trap vs. Solar

F - 5/6, NA time
TY vs. Patience
Rogue vs. Bunny

G - 5/10, Euro time
Stats vs. Scarlett
Keen vs. Classic

H - 5/13, NA time
Hero vs. Major (who now goes by "Special"?)
Armani vs. Byun


One amusing note - the top 2 finishers from last season get to pick their opponents. Stats picked Scarlett (hope she can beat him), Soo DIDN'T pick Major - wtf??

Jesus christ Blizzard release 1.18 already. If you gave up on keybinding then what the **** else is taking so long to patch

I think it's just bugs they're clearing out tbh, although at lower levels I'm not sure that T being able to put stim/mines/irradiate/siege/build important unit on the same hotkey will help with balance (obv pros have been using the defaults for years and don't care)

S is also really close to Z, which is nice for 5sz6sz7sz1a2a3a

What about with the Remaster?

So the free update to BW is out or????

Nope!

watching ASL live for the first time this season, the bisu/mini/light/jaehoon group

bisu/mini - watch if you have time



light/jaehoon - watch because it's quick



winners match - don't bother

losers match - watch this one

final match - also watch this one if you like OP stuff

So what do I do when Terran pushes my base at like 5 mins with 8 marines and 6 cyclones?

Pray to Tom Cruise that the precogs give me the foresight to research carapace with my second chunk of gas?

Perfect 2-angle Zergling surround with about 40 zerglings on his half of the map. Another 40 at home with Queen support, and he lost 8 of the marines, but then I was cooked. I managed to get some of the cyclones low, so there may be something to be said for better Queen target firing, but **** man, Cyclones are MEAN.

As I pass 4200 MMR, it's becoming more and more clear that I am just not good enough at this game for heavy Zergling play.

All the pros build roaches. I hate roaches. But at the end of the day, they're doing it for a reason, and my insistence on trying to play with mostly ling/bane is just costing me a lot of wins.

On the plus side, I was like 35 games under 500 at one point, and now I'm back slightly above even. I used to have a 65-70% winrate vs terran, but now I'm 42-46 against them, so my ZvZ and ZvP have really turned around.

Terran has been pissing me off lately. I haven't played in about a week but the last time I did it was all two-base pushes - somehow mass hellion has made a comeback (???) which isn't so bad, but I saw a lot of variants of hellion-cyclone or marine-cyclone and cyclones are just absurd ****ing units so I usually just died. I started doing the Soo ravager rush and it made me feel a bit better.

This is like the least helpful advice ever because I can't even follow it, but I think you just need to scout, figure out what units they're making, and make the right counter. Which is pretty ****ing hard if you don't see what's coming straight out of the factory, because you want to do different things against widow mines than against cyclones but they both can come out of reactored factories if Terran is doing some cheesy ****. I've started trying to integrate OL speed earlier into my build (w/ next 100 gas after ling speed) to help.

I would imagine that lings are fine against cyclones if they're fighting cyclones, but if they're fighting something else while the cyclones are dealing damage then their damage output is just wayyyy too high.

I watched the replay of the Cyclone game. He rushed right to double factory for Cyclone production, and didn't make a CC at all. If I had held my front at the natural, I would've lost my third, but still probably been okay. He was following it up with a tech lab starport.

I guess it was just an all-in I wasn't prepared for.

Hell, even if I had pulled my drones at the natural, that might've been enough to hold, and I still would've been up on workers.

Catching up on ASL group D:

hero/Lazy - very good game



Rain/sSak - ok, watch if you have time



Winners match - weird one but not really worth watching even though it's very unorthodox



Losers match - watch because it's LOL and very short



Final match - not worth watching

SC/BW 1.18 patch + free download finally released

oh hell yes

Noice will be installing tonight.

Won my first OG game today lost my 2nd. Felt fun to play but JFC does it feel weird to not have probes go straight to mining.

GSL group A final match spoiler



Also, what? Deadwing is back in the GSL map pool? Okay.

To talk more about the above spoiler -

I have spent some time watching Avilo of all people lately. Only when he's playing Zerg, though. I'm still new to the stream, so his shrill lisp and irritating demeanor hasn't completely ruined it for me yet, but he's surprisingly adept at crushing souls with Zerg for a Terran player. He makes odd decisions, but solid mechanics.

He throws games in the exact same way I do sometimes (do a ton of early damage, essentially force your opponent to attack you out of desperation, and lose because you just built 20 drones instead of units to hold the attack you just provoked) but his unit control is really good. He likes Mutas as much as I do, but probably a little TOO much. I've watched him throw 9 base vs 4 base games by throwing away 200 mutas and literally running the entire map out of Vespene. There was also an 80 minute Swarm Host vs Raven game that he threw (draw) by building an absolutely OBSCENE amount of Nydus Worms, and not having enough gas left for even a single corruptor to kill the Terran buildings floated into a corner.

I've decided I'm going to make Master league happen. I flirted with it in HOTS, but never actually got the promotion. I'm going to go look up proper timings and maybe a build order or two, instead of just winging it and trying to win with ling/bane every game. Might even build a roach. Baby steps.

I've been thinking about doing the same recently, though I was comfortably Masters back in WoL/start of HotS. Realistically all you need to do is practice your mechanics and just build whatever comps you want. Judging from my experiences in unranked vs people with Diamond borders (my MMR never gets that high because I don't play ZvZs or randoms), solid macro will still be more than enough to get to Masters. The overall level of play on the ladder feels much lower compared to other expansions, which is kinda weird since you'd think only hardcore players would be left by now, thereby raising the level.

You're definitely right, and I'm certain there are people who can get masters with mass Queen or something. My mechanics aren't good enough. It's not JUST about macro though.

I think I can say with 100% certainty that my biggest mechanical shortcoming is the ability to deal with drops and split harass.

I am a filthy all-army hotkey abuser. I do use subgroup hotkeys, too, but I still find myself getting torn apart by drops or not having the necessary hit squad in place to deal with things. I tried unbinding all-army completely and forcing myself to get better and it was an absolutely unmitigated disaster.

It's one of those things that I pay attention to when watching pro streams, and very few of them don't use it at ALL, but I am definitely in the "abuse" category of users.

If I'm going to move up, I also need to watch more of my own replays.

If we were talking about getting to GM or going pro, I'd agree that it isn't JUST about macro. But below those levels, it definitely is. Simply being able to make more units than your opponent is worth so many more wins than any other skill in the game.

As for drops, the best defense is vision. The sooner you see them, the longer you have to react. You don't really need to leave units behind, but it's not a bad idea to start out on if you're bad at looking at the minimap (I know I am). Spores and spines also. Multi-pronged harass is much harder to play against than it is to play as, which is why its so good.

I would recommend trying to kick your F2 habit though lol. Shift-clicking eggs into control groups is pretty strictly superior to F2 IMO. I don't use it at all, personally, though it's because I have F2 bound to a camera hotkey (which I also don't use anymore lol) and never bothered to rebind it. It's been like that since before select-all-army was even a thing.

Camera hotkeys are something I only recently adopted, and they're GLORIOUS. I highly recommend.

My all-army is bound to tilde. I use F1-5 for camera locations.

I only say it's not 100% macro because I can't tell you how many games I've lost with superior economy/army, but I lose all my tech and 25 drones to 3 dropships filled with marines while I'm pushing into a defensive Terran.

I think I'm pretty good about building lots of **** and staying on top of my injects and whatnot, but those drops though!

Or I'll lose 30 drones and my spire to DTs split between my main and my third, right as P marches his zealot archon army to my side of the map. If that spire were alive, I would've been able to have than enough mutas ready to deal with it by the time he arrived, but I lost it to DTs because I'm a F2(tilde) scrub without any static defenses and poor unit management skills.

I think I've mentioned earlier in this thread that I often end games by simply showing up with 150 banelings to the last engagement. You don't usually find yourself in that position unless you're way ahead.

If I didn't think I'd immediately lose 40 games in a row, I'd try to unbind all army again.