A few things I’ve encountered lately.

So, though up to this point in time the only league I’ve played seriously is 3v3, I’ve started branching out a little.  1v1 is a whole different world, and I’m learning a lot.  I think I understood earlier that there was such a concept as scouting, but until I started playing 1v1, I never really understood how important it was.  Before, I always had my teammate to save my tail, now I have to make sure I know what’s coming so I can be ready for it.  As long as I know what is coming, I usually let my opponent attack first, then counter if I’ve won that battle.  Here‘s a replay that demonstrates this principle quite nicely (it’s a 2v2, but still).  You scout, make judgments based on what you see, such as 2 gateways, 2 assimilators, and early spawning pool, etc, and then alter your build to accommodate.  In this case, all we had to do was build zerglings.  I like zerglings.  Especially the fast ones.

The concept of countering has become more important as well.  In team games, you can counter to a point, but there are always more players and more units.  Team games, especially 4v4, seem to boil down to not which units you make, but how many.

  Again with my 2v2 partner, we’ve encountered some tough situations.  Sometimes players are just plain better than us, and sometimes they use cheesy strats.  The most difficult one of these to deal with, in my opinion, is the proxy zealot rush.  Building a gateway close to your opponents base gives you a huge advantage, and it is very difficult to counter.  Now, I wouldn’t be writing this paragraph if I hadn’t done it, so here it is.  In case you didn’t know, the early zerg counter to zealots is roaches.

I’d also like to point out how my teammate set up his defense.  He essentially creates a choke point at one of his spine crawlers, sets some roaches in the path to tank, and has the spine crawler and queen pewpewing from behind.  Evolution chambers can be effective walls as zerg, as they only cost 75 minerals and have more hp than a supply depot.

Finally, I’d like to mention the lamest strategy I’ve encountered in 1v1 – the marine/SCV rush.  I’ve only seen it once, but here’s the general idea – you build 6 or so marines, and then move in to hit.  The plan is to have your scvs soak up the damage while your marines shoot the daylights out of your opponent.  Well, this guy tried it on me, and it failed.

Well, that’s about all I have to say right now.  That, and Hawkeye and I recently made plat in 2v2′s.  I’m sure I’ll write more about that later.