RTS Starcraft 2 goes free to play

[Dzupakazul]

I play 2v2s with a buddy of mine, we hit Plat, and whenever I open Reapers (I play T) either the enemy chases me with his entire probe line or doesn't realize the Reaper is there until 3-4 probes die.

 

[Venser]

Fucking finally

 

[Leechmonger]

Fucking finally

Did you

Spoiler

have fun?

 

[Eyestabber]

Fucking finally

Are you on Americas?

Btw, congratulations! You would probably stomp me 1v1.

 

[Venser]

Are you on Americas?

Btw, congratulations! You would probably stomp me 1v1.

Europe. What rank are you?

 

[Eyestabber]

Platinum. Not even close to getting to diamond. I'm still getting matched with people who try to mass void rays, lel.

Won a TvT yesterday because I got Battlecruisers and range increases liberators before the other guy. Felt proud of myself microing my raven to win the air battle after forcing the engagement with the liberators. 2/3 bcs survived by jumping away with 40 hp.

 

[MilesBeyond]

I've been playing a lot of coop recently and it's surprisingly fun. I thought it would suck because it involves relying on random strangers but for the most part they're normally pretty quiet and reasonably competent. Even if they suck and you're doing like 80% of the work you'll still probably end up winning. I also thought it would suck because it involves a lot of chatter from the SC2 characters who are almost universally terrible (Abathur is the only tolerable one), but you end up tuning it out after a bit. But the progression system is fairly fun and I do always enjoy the way that different commanders kind of push you into different playstyles.

Also is it just me or is the SC2 community in general getting less toxic? The other week I played 1v1 for the first time in months, if not over a year, and my first game I got cannon rushed. I'd never had to deal with a cannon rush since the addition of the Shield Battery before so I folded pretty quickly, but while it was happening we had a great chat and my opponent gave me some good tips on how to avoid it in the future.

 

[Eyestabber]

Come on! Cheesing a game doesn't make you "toxic", like wtf. But to answer you question: sc2 has always been one of the "less shitty" communities, IMO. Specially if you compare to mobas, which are the bottom feeders of the gaming world imo.

 

[Multidirectional]

I am getting way too used to Swarm Hosts + Nydus trolling lately. I saw BeastyQT going all in with that build in one of his videos and I thought to myself - what if I keep only 10-12 Swarm Hosts in Nydus to annoy them? That amount is enough to shoot down their bases. The fact that you can have multiple Nydus exits open at the same time seems actually OP in Gold League. :D Sometimes they don't even bother killing them.

ELO definitely works, one season I'm in silver (1v1 zerg) , the next they put me in god damn platinum after 1 placement match. Did placement for 4v4 just for fun, got placed in diamond after 3W2L I'm scared to do the season placement match, they'll just put me in grandmaster or something and invite me to some tournament.

That's why it's better to surrender placement matches and then climb to your level. There's no fucking way few matches are enough to decide your placement even when it doesn't bug out like it did for you.

 

[Eyestabber]

So yeah, still playing. Having a really hard time breaking into diamond and the season is almost up. I'm gonna be super butthurt if I finish as Plat1 despite beating so many diamond players.

Going for a bit of a switch into Protoss. I felt really comfortable with toss instead of Terran simply because the micro is easier. Terran is just too much pressure: get caught unsieged once and you're dead. GG. Sure, their midgame is much stronger, but Terran has no real late game. All their GOOD units are midgame and can't do shit against late game Protoss/Zerg deathball. I hate feeling rushed. I'm more of a macro-timing kind of guy and Protoss can cronoboost upgrades and hit super strong timings in quick succession, which is awesome.

Anyway, here is something interesting I watched the other day:



I mean, come on. Look at this shit. The faggot casters are straight up rooting for the tranny. They keep implying that the korean dude isn't playing "fair" or whatever but like...no. The guy is not a serial cheeser (I've seen him play macro and destroy his opponent) but he clearly decided to play his opponent. Because he is going up against a mentally deranged tranny. And winning. And he won simply because he unraveled the faggot's mind. Retarded tranny starts making more and more mistakes as the matches go on. I love this match. The Korean troll read his opponent, sees a mentally ill person and decides to take advantage of that fact, meanwhile the casters get butthurt seeing their pet pervert getting rekt. Gr8 justice, much game.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Having a really hard time breaking into diamond and the season is almost up.

I hate feeling rushed. I'm more of a macro-timing kind of guy and Protoss can cronoboost upgrades and hit super strong timings in quick succession, which is awesome.

The faggot casters are straight up rooting for the tranny.

The guy is not a serial cheeser (I've seen him play macro and destroy his opponent)

If you put any of the effort into writing this useless diatribe into actual Starcraft, you'd certainly be past Diamond right now, because:
1) these casters are simply bantzing at all times, that's their job - entertainment. Seeing a guy proxy rax rush in every game might be effective, but it's also not particularly entertaining to watch because most players and viewers actually prefer long, macro-oriented games over quick ones. This is why people don't usually enjoy watching BW PvP and ZvZ - it ends really early and sometimes causes people's fan favourites to have grudges against the matchup (Soulkey and Jaedong are recently losing a lot in those fast-paced matchups that feel like a coinflip), and also the unit composition always ends up basically the same;
2) e-sports loves their narrative, and this particular match oozes it in spades without even touching Scarlett's gender (foreigners vs Koreans, race vs race, cheeser vs non-cheeser, comparing previous match records).
3) the guy is not a serial cheeser, but Scarlett also isn't even a bad player. She gets legit wins against many players, and she also cheeses the fuck out of series (I'm sure you would consider her wins against Innovation and sOs in recent memory to be something akin to subhuman trash tactics only because you really got a hateboner for someone who willingly removed their own ability to boner). You are acting like she hasn't had a multitude of accomplishments and a distinguished style already, and that makes me think that you are missing the forest for the trees. Scarlett still got this series into a fifth game, which generally means that the series was close and not a one-sided sweep for the superhuman smartie player who completely eviscerated someone's feeble and damaged mind.
4) the casters weren't even blatantly rooting for Scarlett you sperg. InControl ends the match remarking that the match was 5 proxies (which casters generally don't enjoy), says "well done to Masa" and that's pretty much it, there isn't a call to lynch the player. People just generally don't like proxies. They end games early. They don't produce as many cool or memorable games. You yourself don't like proxies, rushing, games that end early, unless they just so happen to someone you don't personally like on absurdly superficial grounds.

What an useless post. Zero love for one of the most beautiful games out there, just autistic rage and tired tirades about identity politics where they don't belong. You act like your typical tumblrina. I hope you lose to Photon Cannons in your base in every game and tank all the way to Gold while crying about how ebil smurfs don't let you spread your wings to 200/200 because words are not enough for this lack of self-awareness.

EDIT:

 

[ArchAngel]

How about that GSL vs World finals. Fuck yea, Koreans finally dethroned!

 

[Eyestabber]

She

I can see why you're butthurt. Fucking PC drone.

1) these casters are simply bantzing at all times, that's their job - entertainment. Seeing a guy proxy rax rush in every game might be effective, but it's also not particularly entertaining to watch because most players and viewers actually prefer long, macro-oriented games over quick ones. This is why people don't usually enjoy watching BW PvP and ZvZ - it ends really early and sometimes causes people's fan favourites to have grudges against the matchup (Soulkey and Jaedong are recently losing a lot in those fast-paced matchups that feel like a coinflip), and also the unit composition always ends up basically the same;

Nonsense. Seeing cheese in a pro match gets EVERYONE hyped up. NoRegret delivered a ton of fun matches to watch simply due to how committed he is to hyper aggression.

3) the guy is not a serial cheeser, but Scarlett also isn't even a bad player. She gets legit wins against many players, and she also cheeses the fuck out of series (I'm sure you would consider her wins against Innovation and sOs in recent memory to be something akin to subhuman trash tactics only because you really got a hateboner for someone who willingly removed their own ability to boner). You are acting like she hasn't had a multitude of accomplishments and a distinguished style already, and that makes me think that you are missing the forest for the trees. Scarlett still got this series into a fifth game, which generally means that the series was close and not a one-sided sweep for the superhuman smartie player who completely eviscerated someone's feeble and damaged mind.

Holy shit. The butthurt whiteknighting is fucking shameful. No wonder Starcraft 2 has a bad rep around here, your kind belong in fucking reddit with your strawmanning nonsense.

(i) I didn't say Scarlett was bad. Where did you get that? He could probably beat everyone here with his left hand behind his back. Doesn't change the fact that a player of similar skill could beat him by playing him, rather than the game and that's something MaSa excels at. I've seen him fake proxies, fake macro openings to follow up with proxies, the guy is REALLY good at getting oponents to either underestimate or overestimate his current tactics. And he transitions out of a cheese THE MOMENT the tide starts to turn, never gets tunnel vision into cheesing. That's admirable.

(ii) The bold part is you going full retard. Dafuq? Do you seriously think I care about SC2 pro scene to the point of whiteknighting a pro player (Innovation in my case) like YOU'RE DOING RIGHT NOW? Fucking lol. Go back to reddit [2].

(iii) No acknowledgement of MaSa's superior display of skill. Which is to be expected. Shows how awfully biased you are.

4) the casters weren't even blatantly rooting for Scarlett you sperg. InControl ends the match remarking that the match was 5 proxies (which casters generally don't enjoy), says "well done to Masa" and that's pretty much it, there isn't a call to lynch the player. People just generally don't like proxies. They end games early. They don't produce as many cool or memorable games. You yourself don't like proxies, rushing, games that end early, unless they just so happen to someone you don't personally like on absurdly superficial grounds.

The reason I dislike proxies is simply because of my own personal limitations. I said nothing ITT about "unfair" or "subhuman tactics". Actually I said this:

Come on! Cheesing a game doesn't make you "toxic", like wtf.

If only you were into reading. I prefer going into the late game because I feel like I have stronger decision making skills than mechanics and mid-to-late game is where good decisions can trump a slight disadvantage. I had MANY midgame comebacks in my match history, both as Terran and Protoss. Getting back into the game with a good drop/prism, winning at a disadvantage because I hit a perfect timing push, denying a comeback with an accurate anti-timing etc. All these things happened to me and they can't happen in a short game decided by proxies. Did I ever say proxies were a "no-no"? No. Take the stick out of your ass.

Zero love for one of the most beautiful games out there

Weren't you saying SC2 is shit and BW is the best thing ever and forever?

I hope you lose to Photon Cannons in your base in every game and tank all the way to Gold while crying about how ebil smurfs don't let you spread your wings to 200/200 because words are not enough for this lack of self-awareness.

Pros also lose to cannons in their bases. Just watched MaNa do that to Snute and win. Your point is moot. And AGAIN, I never said anything about smurfs, you're just being a retard. Again. As for self-awareness, I never claimed I don't belong in my MMR range, and you're just a really salty bitch because someone laughed at Scarlett getting rekt by an underdog player.

 

[Dzupakazul]

I can see why you're butthurt. Fucking PC drone.

lmao, that's simply not being edgy on purpose, the fact that you're hinging onto it shows what the clue of your argument is. "i called them a he, that will show them xDDD" as you continue to play shitty inconsistent games in platinum and pretending you have any insight into those games when you can probably hit Diamond by just massing gates and not missing production cycles.

(i) I didn't say Scarlett was bad. Where did you get that?

oh yeah it couldn't be surmised from the insane "mentally retarded faggot" drivel. absolutely did not mean to disrespect a player solely because of their personal life. totally you acknowledge how good Scarlett is and it oozes through your post. it only just happens that when Scarlett gets cheesed in every BO5 it's because a player was "preying on her mental degeneracy". what's your excuse when someone else gets cheesed? "Justice served!", you said yourself while pretending it's not about "that person's penis offends me, they're bad and deserve to lose for what they are". Anybody else got cheesed and you'd not think twice about it. What a dweeb.

(ii) The bold part is you going full retard. Dafuq? Do you seriously think I care about SC2 pro scene to the point of whiteknighting a pro player (Innovation in my case) like YOU'RE DOING RIGHT NOW? Fucking lol. Go back to reddit [2].

nothing and nobody is being whiteknighted here, you're being an abrasive retard for no reason. "lol look at how this mentally retarded person is being mentally retarded!". Leave this game, you have no respect for the participants.

(iii) No acknowledgement of MaSa's superior display of skill. Which is to be expected. Shows how awfully biased you are.

MaSa played well. Doesn't warrant shitting on another player. Doesn't warrant introducing other people to this shitpost. I can't even get any sort of vibe that the casters are calling MaSa toxic for spamming proxy builds. You probably picked up the vibe of "I feel bad for Zerg" to mean "LMAO WHITE KNIGHTS". really shows from the tone of your post, actually. You really can't enjoy anything without looking for problematic things in it for you. Kinda like a tmblrina.

If only you were into reading. I prefer going into the late game

and so does everyone else, which is exactly why people enjoy longer, macro oriented games. Hence casters wanted a longer series. It still was a tense 3:2. Yeah, Scarlett is considered a pretty flakey Zerg with massive consistency issues. She still has a fuckton of great games behind her belt, and none of them are

Weren't you saying SC2 is shit and BW is the best thing ever and forever?

No, I said I prefer BW but enjoy SC2. I'm probably the biggest Blizzdrone on this board and genuinely like most of their recent games.

really salty bitch

your blog about how MaSa's victory had some inherent inner meaning about the superiority of some players over "mentally retarded people" is simply unwarranted, disrespectful, and says nothing insightful about this series. You just felt the need to make an useless rant. It was bad, made you sound stupid and was rightly slapped with retadreds. Oh yeah, I bet you respect the player, aside from how they're insane, deranged and stupid.

Pros also lose to cannons in their bases. Just watched MaNa do that to Snute and win. Your point is moot.

Point is that you make it a point that cheesing a player over and over is preying on their unstable mental health rather than simply a strat chosen for whatever reason, which makes you sound cringy as fuck. In that case, have fun getting cheesed in every single game - and writing more QQ about how you're a "decision making player" and "Terran doesn't let you do late game". Lol, just go mech. Or learn to use ghosts and ravens.

I just don't see any merit in watching a competitive game going on and fixating on the players' personal lives beyond their conduct on the battlefield, which was respectful at all times. Otherwise this is the mindset of the same annoying people who scream GOOOKCLIIIICK. I can't wait for you to find a Stephano game where he loses a close BO5 and you chalk it up to his "inferior negro genes" or something else that you fabricated.

 

[Eyestabber]

lmao, that's simply not being edgy on purpose, the fact that you're hinging onto it shows what the clue of your argument is. "i called them a he, that will show them xDDD" as you continue to play shitty inconsistent games in platinum and pretending you have any insight into those games when you can probably hit Diamond by just massing gates and not missing production cycles.

Kid, I'm not a "pro gamer". If I never make it into diamond my paychecks are gonna keep rolling just the same and it's unlikely I'm gonna care that much. People like you are the reason why "esports" are garbage and bad for gaming in general. It breeds stuck up PC cunts like yourself, who fly off the handle the moment your favorite pervert "pro gamer" gets insulted.

oh yeah it couldn't be surmised from the insane "mentally retarded faggot" drivel. absolutely did not mean to disrespect a player solely because of their personal life. totally you acknowledge how good Scarlett is and it oozes through your post. it only just happens that when Scarlett gets cheesed in every BO5 it's because a player was "preying on her mental degeneracy". what's your excuse when someone else gets cheesed? "Justice served!", you said yourself while pretending it's not about "that person's penis offends me, they're bad and deserve to lose for what they are". Anybody else got cheesed and you'd not think twice about it. What a dweeb.

I called a spade a spade and that was enough to make you fly on a fit of autistic rage. That's funny.

You really can't enjoy anything without looking for problematic things in it for you. Kinda like a tmblrina.

You can't ignore your programming to attack someone who disrespects another's pronouns. Like an actual tumblerina.

I'm probably the biggest Blizzdrone

A decliner and a PC drone. 'k.

was rightly slapped with retadreds.

Take your upboat mentality back to reddit. I couldn't care less about your button pressing.

fixating on the players' personal lives

Nigga, wut? There is no need to fixate on the guy's personal life when he constantly screams about being a tranny and the casters mention that fact every now and then. Like, wtf have u been smoking?

I can't wait for you to find a Stephano game where he loses a close BO5 and you chalk it up to his "inferior negro genes" or something else that you fabricated.

Biodrone, decliner, and crack smoker it seems. Lol. All I know about Stephano is that he plays zerg and is pretty good at it. I watched a handful of YT videos, you're the one obviously interested in personal lives. You should get one yourself.

 

[Goral]

Non-Korean player wins SC2 tournament for the first time in history:

 

[Deflowerer]

Still an Asian though.

 

[Venser]

Non-Korean player wins SC2 tournament for the first time in history

You mean wins Korean tournament but that ain't true either as Neeb won KESPA cup in 2016.

Still an Asian though.

What do you mean? The guy is from Finland.

 

[Deflowerer]

Still an Asian though.

What do you mean? The guy is from Finland.

Yes, as I said, Asians.

 

[ArchAngel]

Non-Korean player wins SC2 tournament for the first time in history

You mean wins Korean tournament but that ain't true either as Neeb won KESPA cup in 2016.

Still an Asian though.

What do you mean? The guy is from Finland.

Yea, but this tournament had better opponents. He was not first one to beat Koreans and win it all but he was first one to beat the best Koreans on the way of winning it all.

 

[Venser]

Yea, but this tournament had better opponents. He was not first one to beat Koreans and win it all but he was first one to beat the best Koreans on the way of winning it all.

True, he convincingly beat top players of each race (Innovation 3-0, Dark 3-1 and Stats 4-3) and even beat Maru in a showmatch. He's the best SC2 player at the moment.

 

[Eyestabber]

So...

Finally got into Diamond as Protoss. Right after the Season ended . Still enjoying the game. If anyone else wants to go tryhard, go to http://sc2replaystats.com/ and upload some replays. This site is amazing and points out EXACTLY how much you're screwing up compared to the average [yourleague +1] player. The main things holding me back were:

- Too few gateways
- Too vulnerable to early pressure

Which somewhat matched my own impressions: my mid-game was on par with diamond, but overly aggressive openers could easily bully me into a gg. I started winning way more often by adopting some REALLY basic countermeasures, basic bitch stuff like always having at least 3 gateways by 3:30, not being too greedy with Nexus Crono (crono vital upgrades like Warp Gate/Glaives/Storm/Charge instead). So...yeah. I open Adept/Phoenix against Terran and Zerg and Stalker/Phoenix on PvP. No need to be fancy: safe macro openers, shield batteries on the mineral line, photon cannon at the 5:30 mark (one oracle out before that) and so on. 9/10 times you can win at Platinum under the rule of "more shit counters less shit".

"But Hydras counter Zealots!"
Yeah...5 Hydras don't do shit against 20 Zealots, 8-gate on 2 base charge timing

Oh, as for the Meta, LOOK AT WHAT I FOUND:



TL;DW: Beastyqt, one of the best Terrans of all time makes the exact same points I made earlier ITT: Terran has no late game. He starts the video beating around the bush saying Terran is "not fun", but the gets to the meat of the issue: Ghost/Raven/Battlecruiser are a fucking joke compared to Storm/Carrier/Tempest or Broodlord/Infestor/Viper. The Terran player is on a timer, he needs to win before the opponent reaches a critical mass of late game units. Responding with your own late game units is not an option unless you're WAY better than your opponent. Which means you're handicapped. Early game is also not perfect, since some counters are just way too hard (eg: Banelings vs Bio) and that leads to a lot of pro Terrans either switching or giving up on SC2. Beasty switched to Protoss.

It also means Maru would stomp everything and everyone if ONLY he wasn't playing chess without a Rook. Don't get me wrong: Serral is REALLY fucking good, but it all boils down to "counter Terran early aggression and win", because Terran CANNOT play against either Zerg or Protoss without early aggression while the Protoss sure can. A passive TvZ/P means Terran loses while a passive ZvP can go either way. Terran becomes THE most predictable race in the game, which makes the games standard and also unfun (another point Beastyqt made in his video).

 

[ArchAngel]

Serral beat best protoss as well so your claim about Maru is baseless

 

[Dzupakazul]

TL;DW: Beastyqt, one of the best Terrans of all time

Ehhh, given his track record (mostly really good in the early days of SC and overall retired for a few years now) that's kinda like saying Grrr... was one of the best Protosses of all time. At this point he's a casual streamer and he never really had a period of total domination. He's a very competent ladder player for sure, though.
Plus there's also the issue of the fact that he's writing about this from the perspective of someone who plays at a very high level of the ladder.
I'm all for deciding that some race isn't fun for someone to play, but frankly, the way these arguments are set up sound basically like "my favourite race is the hardest to play", and that's my least favourite facet of the Starcraft community by far. His complaints about the one-dimensionality and lack of aggressive play kinda seem to contrast with the fact that you just posted a series where a Terran cheeses a Zerg 5 games in a row.
I feel like, in the foreigner culture, most players feel somewhat entitled to their macro games and want to play a long drawn-out battle of wits, whereas Koreans (due to the need to maximize the time at the PC Bang) value their cheese as a valid strategy, hence their initial training regime involves getting really good with units.

And again, you can't tell me that in cases like TvZ Terran doesn't hold the initiative over Zerg given not only the plethora of available cheese play, but the mere fact that you're dictating the flow of the game simply by choosing to go either mech or bio. Yes, mech is not great in TvP - but it's only natural that you won't hold the advantage in every matchup.

So far, Terrans are still enjoying decent representation in tournaments, and at a ladder level where most of us play, Terran is still perfectly capable of delivering wins, and in Diamond, most players are more focused on executing their macro properly (or cheese micro if they're so inclined) rather than reading deeply into your movements and dealing with how "predictable" you supposedly are.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Pros bitching about balance lol

I know why Blizz does it, but it's annoying that they balance the game around the top .0001% of players rather than the vast majority of people who haven't been playing 12 hours a day since they were 13.

Yeah, I get that widow mines aren't a big problem for a top 20 grandmaster, but they're unbelievably OP vs the diamond or below player who loses half his army to a widow mine that was just burrowed in some random area 10 minutes ago.

Once you get into diamond you'll see that there's a 90 degree cliff about the size of mt. everest full of stupid bullshit strats that you need to memorize in order to progress, all while remembering that one slight mis-micro will wipe your entire army and throw the game