Yeah when I saw all the thors I was thinking BACK BACK BACK because I wanted to be able to neural from the high ground of my main. Then I realized wait - thats a better position down there and ran down as fast as possible. It worked pretty well, thats probably the first time I've really used neural.

4/9/2011 9:37:54 AM

Playing the real way melts my brain, but i've been having a lot of fun w/ custom games lately. Do you guys have any recommendations for fun custom games? I've mostly been playing tugofwar and tower defense type ones

4/10/2011 12:47:40 PM

The only custom game I've really enjoyed playing in depth is SOTIS. It can get pretty competitive though, but its a ton of fun.

4/10/2011 1:27:31 PM

^^I've always enjoyed Blood Pressure Marathon, but no one seems to play that anymore.

It's a race around the border of a square map. At the end of each side/lane, you change units. If you have a lot of people, it makes for a really fun/chaotic game. You can attack each other or use whatever ability your unit has to slow them down. If you die, you restart in your current lane with a new unit.

4/10/2011 1:38:25 PM

The Funday Monday was pretty good this week.

4/13/2011 9:52:21 AM

I'll have to watch it tomorrow. The nuke one was hilarious though, I was cracking up the whole way through.

4/13/2011 12:14:35 PM

You'll like this one. It's a 2-parter.

4/13/2011 1:28:03 PM

The best ones are where people do really bronzeish things, and day9s reactions. Like the guy refusing to move his army while a nuke was landing on it, and day9 is like "and he moves his army... moves his army... moves his army", then the guy loads his army into medivacs next to the nuke and they all die. Hilarity.

4/13/2011 1:42:42 PM

The roach, infestor, thor vid was a good bronze/silver.

4/13/2011 4:35:18 PM

Yeah some of the best stuff he does is when he just rips on people and the stupid stuff they do. At that point it isn't about even teaching the game, just simply making fun of bad players.

I started to watch this one but it didn't seem that interesting at first I'll have to go back and watch it all the way through.

Zags and I were killing it in 2v2 before this last patch and reset. We suck now, must have lost 10 of our last 12 games, to bad players too. Zerg just sucks right now, infestor change was nice but it isn't game changing. Since we play double Zerg anytime we get any combination of PP/PT/TT it is near impossible to win. If we try to end it early they have plenty of ways to defend, if we macro they can usually keep up or do an early gateway/bio push that we can't stop. Couple that in with worrying about banshees, phoenix, DTs, helions, helion drops, really pretty helpless.

Lair needs to be cheaper or build faster, roach speed shouldn't require lair, and Ultras/broods need to not suck or take less time to get to.

4/13/2011 7:02:41 PM

Sounds like balance should be different for 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4.

4/13/2011 7:48:24 PM

Not sure if you could do that... and if you are a mixed team it isn't a big deal.

However, since we play zerg/zerg, any deficiencies in the race are basically magnified. So if you are vulnerable to 4 gate as a zerg if you don't prep for it, and you play zz vs. pp, and they both 4 gate, the vulnerability is essentially double.

And the advantages of being double zerg, outside of the threat of a double 6 pool, are easily stopped because static defense/wall off/force fields are so effective. So things like double roach pushes, or other early timings often don't work well on the team maps. Neither of us want to change races, but we find ourselves in a lot of games where we go back and watch the replay and the game essentially hits a point that it is not winnable.

4/13/2011 11:21:50 PM

Basically the issue is that most games that go long for zerg get to a point where the protoss or terran is just massing a 200/200 army off two base. If you want to survive it you have to have the exact right composition. But the problem is zerg has so many specific counters, its not like terran where you can just build thor/tank/marine and counter everything.

So unless we know exactly what the other two guys are doing we are fucked. When you multiply that 200/200 x 2 there are just so many specific compositions you have to have to be able to beat it. Basically we cant win a game unless get make it 2v1 early or we get off a ton of harass, which is difficult because its so easy to turtle.

And most of the 2v2 maps are the size of 1v1 maps, its near impossible to play macro style zerg and take more then 2 bases.

4/14/2011 7:06:24 AM

I've been having fun w/ Vexal TD and the Blizzard StarJeweled. Both fairly simple i guess, but i like 'em. I've definitely been having a lot more SCII fun lately, but i'll get back into some real games

4/14/2011 8:18:23 PM

Inspired by Zags' post earlier in this thread, I've been 15 hatch, 16 pooling against Protoss and it's been working really well. I just mass Zerglings (generally with +1 carapace) and spines early in case there's any sort of 4gate early pressure, then tech to mutas and roll in with a death wave of them.

I really need to start learning to take a third more efficiently, but at the moment, it's working pretty well. Nothing better than watching them panic with a helpless Colossus.

The only issue are Phoenix and for those a couple of Corruptors take care of that. This sure as hell beats getting mass roaches and hydras and watching them melt to a Stalker/Colo ball even at 3/3

[Edited on April 14, 2011 at 10:19 PM. Reason : .]

4/14/2011 10:17:33 PM

anyone been watching, or rather, attempting to watch the NASL?

50k first prize payout and they cant get their shit straight.

4/17/2011 11:04:06 PM

^^ Its a solid build, although I personally prefer 13 hatch 15 pool only because its usually safer to get the hatch down without risk of getting pylon blocked.

Phoenix usually arent a problem because I'll have so many queens and can easily throw up spores.

4/18/2011 7:23:43 AM

Quote :

"Sounds like balance should be different for 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4. "

Yea 4v4 obviously plays a lot differently from 1v1, but 4v4 shenanigans would result regardless of patches. They have to patch with competitive 1v1 in mind.

I play a lot of 4v4 with friends so I see why it isn't considered 1337 MLG pro, but I would love to see some vids of the pros doing team games, even if it was just 2v2.

4/18/2011 6:59:16 PM

There have been a few of pros playing 2v2s. I definitely enjoy watching pros do team games, but the dynamics are just so different most pros dont do it often.

And there would be no way to balance team games specifically. Some changes have been made which have to some extent crippled parts of 1v1 (like the reaper, which needed a nerf for 1v1 and a severe nerf for team games.. they gave it the severe nerf and basically banished it from 1v1).

Team games will forever be open to abuse, its part of the fun though.

4/18/2011 7:10:16 PM

Quote :

"I play a lot of 4v4 with friends"

I've played a few 4v4 mostly 3v3 or 2v2.

4v4 with shared unit control = ball game. 4 people make 3 or 4 units and send them to one guy. He takes them in to crush one opponent while everyone else macros for a bit. This has worked well for our team.

As an alternative, each set of two players amass a few units, 4-5, and then one group attacks one enemy, wait for the enemy allies to come to his aide, and then the other guy on your team attacks as well.

4/19/2011 8:58:27 AM

There is a lot of cool potential for pro 2v2s

SCVs repairing protoss units, the classic vortex nuke combo, chrono boost on non-protoss buildings, Transfusion on... mauraders i guess.... what if you used a mother ship to cloak a unit... THAT WAS ALREADY Burrowed? DOUBLE CLOAK.

I'm gonna do the neural parasite on some probes/SCVs and check that stuff out for science

4/19/2011 8:12:57 PM

If my teammate goes Mothership I put a bunch of vikings on it for better Air-to-Air defense and a bunch of SCVs beneath it.

Also, you always have to have SCVs on auto repair near Protoss units.

4/19/2011 10:05:18 PM

An ultralisk... with sentry shields... with medivacs

Unstopable

4/19/2011 10:11:39 PM

Roach Medivac is pretty mean.

4/19/2011 10:22:00 PM

Quote :

"the classic vortex nuke combo"

Not doable anymore, they nerfed vortex

But yeah, there are some ridiculous combinations. I'm a fan of medivac/marine/broodlord. Its pretty dirty. The broodlords never die

Protoss + zerg has some fun combos as well, like sentry + baneling, always fun to trap with forcefields then explode with the blings.

4/19/2011 10:59:56 PM

Using the phoneix gravitron beam to lift friendly siege mode tanks as speedlings try and take them out... epic

4/20/2011 1:02:15 AM

All the possible combos are fun but you only live long enough to do them like 1 every 10 games.

4/20/2011 10:09:18 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lTd5LpB6Ao

4/21/2011 9:39:00 AM

I play as Terran in 3v3 and 2v2. My 3v3 team consists of my brother, TheForged (Zerg) and my roommate, Jumbles (Protoss/Terran). We do pretty good. I think we're upper gold.

When I play with my brother, we're gold.
When my roommate plays with my brother, they're gold or plat.
When I play with my roommate, we just got promoted to gold last night.

It's not like our play habits change but I don't think my roommate have the same synergy as we each do when playing with my brother. OR maybe my brother is better than us. I dunno.

@dzags18: Dude go out and buy a mic so you can get on skype with us. We need some better communication in 3v3 or 4v4.

4/21/2011 11:27:11 AM

Maybe at some point soon, been super busy and strapped for cash thanks to the wedding/honeymoon.

And as for the placements with your roommate/brother, the team placements are so weird, dont read too much into it. Titans78 and I have been playing masters people for the last 2 months in 2v2 and still arent getting promoted.

I did finally get promoted to masters in 4v4 random though, so only gotta get 2v2 and 3v3 done and I can see all my w/l!

4/21/2011 1:10:52 PM

Finally freaking Silver after like 3 months.

4/21/2011 8:13:16 PM

Zags and I finally got promoted earlier to masters which was cool. Then I got promoted in 4s so now I only have 3v3 left to have masters in everything. I think I'm close in 3s... so probably just a few days of playing. Not sure why it really matters, I guess just gives something to work towards.

I just want to be able to see my record.

4/22/2011 1:57:14 PM

Yeah finally after months we went from Diamond #12 to Masters #8, in a new division but still funny to see your rank jump a few spots when you go up in leagues.

We also had some fun romping some 3v3s this morning, had a funny game where it was ZZZ vs TTP or something, we killed the terrans really early on (2 zergs going lings and the other going blings is OP). We then proceeded to mine out basically the entire map and covered it in creep. The toss built about 500 cannons and killed our newb partner with voidrays. It was pretty entertaining.

Hopefully we can hit 3v3 masters sometime soon, then we can work towards getting our 2v2 up for when 2v2 grandmasters eventually comes out (Not that it ever will).

4/22/2011 3:29:17 PM

Pretty funny game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJHHW6zSbag

16:55 min mark - lolz

4/25/2011 3:33:14 PM

http://www.teamliquid.net/video/streams/Day%5B9%5D

4/25/2011 10:02:45 PM

^^Hahaha that was gold. Best neural parasite ever.

4/26/2011 12:12:36 AM

Spanishiwa is quickly getting a reputation as the Zerg to watch for innovative play and strategy. That's great use of neural, pretty damn smart.

He's also the one who is getting credit for this 2 base gas delay build that some seem to like. I personally don't like it, I want speed lings in all match-ups pretty much as soon as possible but it is a nice safe approach to zerg.

4/26/2011 1:44:08 AM

Yeah getting credit for a build I was doing 6 months ago . Of course I wasn't doing it on the pro level so I can't complain

4/26/2011 7:18:55 AM

just logged in for the first time in a long time last night and played a qualifying match for "season 2"

i lost and got placed into platinum

4/27/2011 12:27:22 PM

Once the semester ends, going to be playing a lot.

4/28/2011 1:24:01 PM

Any of you guys watching the IPL?

4/28/2011 9:45:33 PM

Watching the day9 stream tonight. It's 2v2 week!

4/28/2011 9:58:10 PM

Quote :

"Once the semester ends, going to be playing a lot."

Fucking word to this. Silver now, Diamond by the end of summer hopefully!

[Edited on April 28, 2011 at 11:29 PM. Reason : .]

4/28/2011 11:28:18 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeWYmv4qbj8&feature=fvwrel

Wow.

4/29/2011 12:44:40 AM

Been stuck at #1 Bronze now for like a week. Got like 300 Points more then the 2nd place person. What the fuck do I have to do to get promoted.

I mean I lose a game here and there, but we're talking like 5,6,7 game winstreaks, lose one -6 points, then back to another 6 game winstreak. So confused.

4/29/2011 1:44:36 AM

^Thats how the ladder works. It sometimes takes a while to stabilize and promote you. I was the same way moving up in 1v1, there were times where it took foreevvver to promote me.

In fact right now I'm having that issue with 3v3. I've been #1 in my division for quite a while, and I just realized looking at sc2 ranks that I'm ranked #3 in the world, #1 in the USA in random team diamond 3v3, and I still cant get promoted to masters

4/29/2011 7:18:10 AM

View the profiles of who you are beating. If you are playing silver players the ladder is looking to promote you.

4/29/2011 10:37:13 AM

^^After posting that I got on and played one game with titans78. The game was a ZZZ (We seem to always get partnered with a third Z) against ZZP. We took out the P with a fast baneling bust, one of the Z's went roaches, the other went ling/bling. At this point our partner was going mutas, I was going roaches and titans78 was staying ling. The roach Z ended up pushing with a big force while the other hit with like 5 mutas, our partner had about 12 mutas. Instead of killing the mutas and us winning the game he quit. Just randomly quits, sends his entire force of drones (two bases worth) straight at the other teams base. At this point its complete chaos as my roach army was small, the opponent had all his roaches spread out and wreaking havoc on all three of our bases as I was running around trying to kill them, while at the same time getting the drones back and mining and get the mutas to kill the other Z's mutas (and eventually his base).

It was just a massive mess and I'm really not sure what the third guy on our team was doing as it was basically a guaranteed win at that point. Maybe he was just trolling.

Either way - the important part was we won the game and got +1 points (+2 with bonus pool!) and I got promoted to masters.

So now I'm finally masters in everything.. my next goal is top 8 in all 4. I'm at least #2 in my division in 3v3's. Went from #1 diamond to #2 masters, in a fairly old division too.

4/29/2011 12:54:27 PM

You're next goal should be getting a damn microphone (tease! tease!)

Congrats though! I have no clue where my teams are since I haven't been on in such a long time. =/

[Edited on April 29, 2011 at 2:20 PM. Reason : -]

4/29/2011 2:19:41 PM

So starting to work on my 1v1 again with the goal of top 8 in my masters division. Just played this game - thought it was one of my best all around games (in terms of macro, apm), my apm averaged over 90 which for me is pretty good, normally I'm around 60-70.

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/171148-1v1-terran-zerg-shakuras-plateau

I'm feeling much more confident vs terran, with the exception of some weird tank pushes which still take me out. This game I just felt like everything was clicking, keeping up with upgrades, teching, etc, all while spreading creep and staying up in bases. Maybe alcohol makes me play better.

4/30/2011 11:23:46 PM