Korean Starcraft 2

For Christmas I bought my brother the Korean version of Starcraft 2. I had student last semester who also plays Starcraft 2, and he traveled to South Korea over the break to get some dental work done and so he offered to buy a copy for me while there.

If you read this blog, you've probably seen that while I suck at Starcraft 2 and could probably be beaten by Wildebeast playing Zerg on 1 Base vs. me on 3 base as Protoss, my brother Jeremy (or Kuri) is pretty good at the game, and sometimes appears in the Top 200 of North American players (last week he was #108). He'd probably be higher on the ladder, but 10 - 15% of his games were lost because of disconnects, because GTA's idea of high speed DSL, means that there is a 50% chance that you're internet connection won't get snapped if someone picks up the phone.

I wanted to get him the Korean version of the game so he could play on the Korean Ladder, which is considered to be the best ladder our there. For those who don't know although Starcraft 2 is meant to be a global game, you don't really play a pool of players from around the world, but instead you are grouped into regional ladders, such as South East Asia, Taiwan, North America, Europe, South Korea, etc, and you play against those who have a copy of the game from that same region. In order to play people from other areas, you have to buy a copy of that version, and you usually lag like crazy when you play on it.

I have heard plenty of stories about the Korean ladder, and Artosis is always making interesting generalizations about how people are playing on the ladder there and how things are or aren't evolving (primarily about zerg tactics), and so I wanted Kuri to test his might there. Even though the players are supposed to be better, I'm sure that doesn't mean less cheesy, but maybe just as much (if not more cheese)but maybe with better micro?

He hasn't started playing the Korean version yet, mainly because he's trying to fight his way to the top of his Masters League division right now (he's number 11). He also apparently needs a South Korean Social Security number in order to activate the Korean version, and so if anyone out there has a spare SS# to lend to us, we'd really appreciate it!

Sais na Hagoe

In one game during the GSL, the Zerg player Leenockfou, after winning a close match raised up 6 fingers to the camera, symbolizing the fact that a certain strategy, one he had used in the game he just won, was still viable. The move is called 6 pool. It comes from the fact that when you start as zerg, instead of creating drones to build your economy, you keep your six initial drones and have them harvest until you can build a spawning pool. As a result of this, you trade in your ability to compete in a longer game, for an early rush, which if not expected is very easy to defeat. In his match on Lost Temple against Guinea Pig in the 3rd GSL last month he 6 pooled, did some initial damage although not too much, but was still able to convert his dangerous all-in rush into a victory.

If you scout and see that your opponent has only five drones and a spawning pool, then they are about to 6 pool you. Na'liston maisa hao, sa' ti apmam magi i tinigong.

Yesterday I saw my brother Kuri get 6 pooled. Thankfully he scouted it early but it sent a chill down my spine, ha na'etdot i tatalo-hu, when he yelled "Ah crap I'm dead!" Fighting six pool requires being walled in and having an early unit which you fight them off until more can be made. It also means pulling your workers to help stall for time. Thankfully this particular 6 pool took place on Lost Temple, where it is very common for people to fast expand to their naturals. He was able to wall in with his already built forge and two additional gateways outside his natural. He got them up just in time, and although one gateway was lost, a canon was fished to scare them off. The forced turtling worked to my brother's advantage as he mined, upgraded, fought off mutalisk attacks, but eventually blew up his own gateways, expanded to the nearby gold base and fought back the zerg across the map, one expansion at a time.

Kao Kesu, Pat Ti Kesu?

I asked the other day what is the definition of "cheesing" other than the sneaky things you do to your opponent that they don't like. I think I found out one of the ways of making a distinction between smart tactics and the sneaky tricks of the weak.

Cannon rushing is one of the "cheesy" tactics that Protoss can use. Photon Cannons are a structure which you are supposed to use for defense. It is as the name implies a canon which gives you some pretty solid defense against both air and ground units. But it can be used as an offensive weapon well, by placing a pylon in your opponents base and then setting up canons around to harass and give them a headache. There is a science to where you place your pylons. You can block off their ramp, try and put it directly in their main base.

A cannon rush can be a legitimate tactic and not always a weapon of the tactically weak. After watching it used in the GSL a couple times, used against my brother and also see others use it online I think that to rush it onto the main or even blocking their ramp is a tool of the desperate. It is an attempt to kill the other before you or them can even start the match. When these tactics are used against better players they tend to fail miserably. Because if they fail, you wasted a significant amount of resources with usually little to show.

The more intelligent use of canons in an offensive manner that I've seen is against the natural expansion and not the main. Setting cannons up to harass and taken out a recently build expansion. I've seen players use this most against Zergs who tend to expand the fastest in order to slow them down a bit. The cannons are not meant to kill the opponent, but simply to slow them down, while you can catch up and build your own expansion.

Kesu

I've been following the GSL in South Korea, and in the later rounds I've really come to wonder what the difference is between "cheese" and good tactics and well-timed rushes? Is the only difference that cheese is something that looks desperate when you do it? Is cheese something you do to mask how you aren't really that good at the game? When I first started playing Starcraft II I assumed that "cheese" was anything that kept the game from reaching the point where you would actually have a battle somewhere on the map with a decent enough number of forces that it would test the abilities of you and your opponent to manage said army that you have created. Basically anyone who attacked you when you weren't ready was "cheesing" you. But now I've seen entire pro-matches where people try to out-cheese each other as quickly as possible and so I'm not sure what's a good way to define it.