Strategy How to improve your Starcraft II skills in 30 games a week.

[Bloodcount]

How to improve your Starcraft II skills in 30 games a week​

Hihi I have been meaning to write a thread like this for a while now. The point of this thread is simply to lead you in the right direction in how to improve while playing Starcraft II.

This system has 3 components - Playing, Analyzing and Fixing​

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Playing​

In reality, the more you play, the better, however I do think that somewhere around 30 games a week where you can see the improvement in your skill. The games you play must be played in sets of 10 at a time. No more, no less. If you feel like playing more, take a 20 minute break and continue.

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Analyzing​

Now that you have played 10 games, you are going to look at every loss you have, preferably at speed x2. If you got cheesed, just look at where you could have scouted better and think how you could have defended better. If it was a straight up game look for the following things:
- Did you have good timings the entire game? (did you build the extra macro structures as fast as you cloud, did you expand at proper times, did you tech at proper times)
- Did you get supply blocked or stopped building workers at a time when you shouldn't have ?
- Did you have a lot of energy on your Command Centre/Queen/Nexus ?
- Did you scout his build, if so, how did you counter it ?
- Did you make any micro mistakes, were you active enough with your units, were there any openings you didn’t miss because your units weren’t in a good position?
*The list is from top to bottom is the way you should check them. Your unit control isn’t important if you get supply blocked every minute.

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Fixing​

Divide your mistakes in every match up. The next time you play a game, go into the game with the mind set that you are NOT going to make 2 of the mistakes you did last game. No more, if you have 6 problems, it will just take some more time. When you stop making these 2 mistakes and you start making them mechanically, then move on to another 2.

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I hope you find this helpful, gl hf.

 

[UndeadDragon]

I'm going to give this a try. Recently, I have been trying to improve my skills with mixed results. I'll let you know of the results.

Couple of typos: cloud -> could and shloud -> should.

 

[Bloodcount]

Oh some feedback would be great ! Thanks! : )

 

[Jedimindtrixxx]

Did you get supply blocked or stopped building workers at a time when you should have ?

do you mean "stopped building workers at a time when you shouldn't have?"

by this do you mean play 3 times a week?

 

[Bloodcount]

3x10 is the easiest way for most people I've asked since 10 games are somewhere between 1 and 3 hours (if every game is macroish and you don't get cheesed or end the game early) Usually 7x10 or 7x20 would be better, but not everyone has that much time.

I do feel though that the games should either be played 3x10, 2x15 or 1x20 + 1x10, because if you play 5 games at a session, there is not much to learn at or you can't really work on permanently fixing the mistakes you have.

 

[Furby]

Bloodcount must know what he is talking about otherwise he would not be master league with his acc and rank 1 diamon league with his training acc.

 

[Siretu]

3x10 is the easiest way for most people I've asked since 10 games are somewhere between 1 and 3 hours (if every game is macroish and you don't get cheesed or end the game early)

1 hour = 60 minutes

60 minutes / 10 games = 6 minutes / game.

I usually count with 15 minutes / game with some additional time so 10 games would probably take me 3 hours.

 

[Bloodcount]

You forget that SCII time is faster than real life time.

Also it might be just me but at least 2 out of to games for me finish before the 8th minute mark (I loose to an early game all in) I say 2 out of 10, because sometimes I may not get cheesed for 20-30 games, and sometimes I am on a loosing streak due too all ins (technical issues aside lol)

Somewhere around 3 hours is the entire process I think... Lets say from 20:00-23:00. ^_^

 

[Bloodcount]

Bloodcount must know what he is talking about otherwise he would not be master league with his acc and rank 1 diamon league with his training acc.

Actually my training acc is rank 20ish master league. Yeah, I just felt like showing off lol.

 

[UndeadDragon]

I have been trying this recently (although, not 30 games a week). I did under-estimate the potential of just training and fixing mistakes, as obvious as it may seem. I have noticed my performance increase a great amount in the past few weeks and my builds have been getting more and more efficient. I have been especially focusing on my macro skills and I am pleased to say that I can now keep my average unspent minerals and gas under about 200 whilst I have 2 bases. Getting more bases usuall makes this increase though

I have also found that watching pro live streams helps me tons. For example, I watched all 5 games of the GSL August finals and MVP is so amazing at mech; I tried similar builds to his and they worked really well for me too.

 

[Bloodcount]

What race are you ? : )

 

[Accname]

I am usually not playing alot.
When i play i play around 3 games in a row, and i do it about once or twice a week.

But i know alot about the game because i watch many commentaries.
Force, Hunter and Joshy as well as TheUEN.
You can learn many builds, counters and strategies when watching although you wont train your mechanics.

When i play i dont play ladder (exept for 2vs2 maybe) but custom games. I beat plat & Gold league players on a regular basis and sometimes diamond and masters league players as well.

I think pure knowledge about the game, how it works and what works best, is already enough to get into plat league even with bad mechanics.
One tip to everybody: Drop drop drop drop drop drop.
Thats a key to victory. I defeated a masters league terran as protoss (my main is zerg) by dropping warp prisms loaded with zealots in 2 of his bases. That was really powerful not just because of the damage itself but because many players dont know how to deal with it. They will pull their whole army or mess up their micro and macro while being dropped because they cannot deal with the pressure.
Although in that particular match it wasnt entirely the drops which won me the game (he was a master league player after all and did pretty well against it) but i got a good opportunity for a timing push, the drop revealed the unit composition he was going for and i was able to quickly counter it.

 

[UndeadDragon]

What race are you ? : )

I am playing Terran

 

[Bloodcount]

Sorry for the slow reply. When playing terran, the most important macro thing is to not get supply blocked, since a depot takes 30 seconds to finish (where as ovies 22, pylons, 25)



Also, mech is the more "might over mobility" terran army, this means that you will max out slower and that you must be decisive with your attacks. Don't attack under 150 supply simply because around that food limit the army starts to really tear things apart.

As long as you leave some defence, you shouldn't have any real trouble in securing an expo.

This is the composition with which having more than you need scv's is good, because you should take ~20 scv's each time you make a big attack, so that they can repair your units.

Good luck

 

[UndeadDragon]

Thanks for the tips Bloodcount

One thing I have never thought about was bringing my SCVs with my army for a big attack. Although, usually at my level the pure damage and pressure of it is enough

 

[Rhydian]

helloo. first post, so i decided why not here

the biggest trouble i have is expanding, how do you know when its safe to expand? what signs do you look for

(terran player too btw)

 

[Bloodcount]

Expanding is something which is never 100% safe, however it is a risk you have to take, because all one base plays are doomed.

A lot of general and bad advise would be "When you attack". Do not ever do it. Why ? If you loose the battle, the money you have invested into the expo are that much less money into defence, you loose the defender's advantage (also known as the 1 base ramp conclave), if your opponent just counter attacks you (let's say he is zerg with 20+ lings) he can crush your expo and force you to remain on one base.

With that being said, the first expansion, should be relatevly fast. Since you are terran for start I suggest going 12 rax 13 rax 15 orbital, after the second marine start building a reactor on your barracks, while the orbital command is building add a second barracks. To it add a tech lab. This is a standard 2 rax bio build- it gives you the option to choose your upgrades and good units. You will stockpile resourses though (given that you constantly build units, scvs and depos) and before the 6th minute you should lay down your expansion. You can use your units to push out and preassure your opponent. It is advisable but you shouldn't loose more than 2/3 of your army. Add 2-3 bunkers and you are safe from most attacks. From here on you can go whatever route you want. : )


The other expansions, I suggest adding when you are ahead- mostly after winning a battle.

 

[Accname]

Another thing is, when your opponent is expanding, its most likely safe to expand yourself as well.
If he invests the resources into an expansion you can do so as well, nobody "should" have a supply advantage at that point.

Another possible timing is, if you are far behind, lets say you lost 2 critical engagements, you could as well power expand to 2 or even 3 different locations. Why? Because that could be the only thing which brings you back into the game. If you are behind you will lose anyways, you can as well take a little risk and hide some additional expansions around the map.

Expanding as terran is in general rather safe, lay down a planetary fotress and a missle turret (for detection of infestors, ghosts, dark templars) and you are safe against the most common expo harrassment. (ling run by, dark templars, zealot warp ins, medivac drop, etc)

 

[GFreak45]

one thing I have also noticed, is that playing random, not just 1 race, is best for practice if you play custom games, that way you learn what is available see ways to counter it etc, i know its better to play to a strength in ranked but when theres no major loss penalties why not get that extra knowledge

 

[Bloodcount]

one thing I have also noticed, is that playing random, not just 1 race, is best for practice if you play custom games, that way you learn what is available see ways to counter it etc, i know its better to play to a strength in ranked but when theres no major loss penalties why not get that extra knowledge

This is really true. My main race is protoss, my secondary is zerg. My best match ups are pvz and zvp. ^_^