Visit my Webpage at: http://www.starcraftiiguide.com/ for more great strategies!
To commemorate the momentous release of StarCraft 2 this week, I figured it would only be proper to feature the game in some way. During the beta, players have mostly only had access to the multiplayer aspect on battle.net. Along with the pro replays being readily available among the community (which you might not want to watch as the commentaries have a lot of awkward nerdgasms), I have compiled a list of my five favorite strategies that I have encountered during the beta. If you're new to the game or genre, this will be a great way to jump start your learning process and move up the ranks!
The list and (potentially awkward) video examples after the jump:
#5 - ThorShip
Race: Terran
Difficulty: Medium
Thors are clunky and are limited by their size and speed as they are hard to maneuver. One way to get around this is by producing Medivacs that can load one Thor each and fly them into your opponent’s base doing damage to the mineral line or sniping some buildings. The difficulty here lies in it being effective. Thors can easily get surrounded and with the Thor’s slow attack speed, it is hard to get rid of the lower tiered more expendable units. A quick fix would be to keep picking up the Thors and moving somewhere else to do more damage. However, the enemy can have anti-air units, which is problematic when your Medivac is very vulnerable without much life points.
It’s a fun strategy to try out (especially to see the animation of a Thor being bundled up under the Medivac and to hear the "Thor izz hea-ahhhh" sound bite when it comes out of the Factory) but also very easy to counter and prevent so it’s hard to justify the resource and time cost if it isn’t effective.
#4 - Mass Queens
Race: Zerg
Difficulty: Hard
The strategy involves producing only Queens as units. While they are meant more as a support unit that stay near the mineral line being limited by its severe lack of speed, the unit’s ability to attack ground and air units as well as having skills that can heal units and buildings and spread creep to increase its movement speed bonus are extremely useful. A nice supplement is building and moving Spine Crawlers along with the Queens across the map or into your opponents’ bases.
While I think this isn’t the most fun to play, it’s hard to deny how effective this can be (and annoying to counter) if the player is microing very well.
#3 - Sneaky Nydus Network
Race: Zerg
Difficulty: Medium
The Nydus Network is a building that a Zerg player can build to transport ground units anywhere on the map as long as the player has sight. Having sight is very easy when you have Overlords placed throughout the map. Navigating one around to a point in your opponent’s base that they don’t have sight in can be game winning since a lot of players are focusing more on protecting the entrance. And who said you can’t create your own entrance?
The strategy is a bit hard to counter as you have to be very conscious of all the Overlords and not knowing where and at what point a Nydus Worm could pop up in your base. You just have to be very active in your clicks and mini map to be conscious of everything that’s going on even while you’re plenty preoccupied.
The best use of this I’ve seen was definitely in the unconventional sense as it was a last ditch effort in a base race by sending drones and a Queen to kill the opponent’s mineral line and Nexus at a point when the opponent had no ability to get more minerals and not enough to build another Nexus.
{Skip to the 22 minute mark)
#2 - Reaper Rush
Race: Terran
Difficulty: Medium
Reapers do a ridiculous amount of damage to buildings, and grouped in high numbers can snipe a building before the enemy can do anything about it. Another great thing about this unit is that they can jump cliffs so you can go into an enemy’s base easily from the sides. The difficulty with this strategy is keeping the element of surprise and doing enough damage. Because reapers cost a lot of gas and doesn't do as much damage to units, it leaves you very vulnerable to an attack.
This strategy is easy to counter if you know it’s coming since Reapers don’t have many life points. This is why it’s very important to scout out Terran players early and before they block off to see if they are getting that early Refinery since Reapers cost a lot of Vespene Gas. Then you just need to make sure to have sight all around your base and keep some units at potential cliff jumping points.
#1 - Speedlings/Banelings
Race: Zerg
Difficulty: Easy
Speedlings are basically Zerglings on crack aka the speed upgrade. Zerglings are cheap to produce and spawn in groups of two. With the speed upgrade, they move very fast and allow you to easily harass your opponents if they are not prepared. The zerglings can go in and destroy the mineral line or surround any attack units if they can take them out or just keep moving away harassing any part of the opponent’s base.
An easy counter is by blocking off any entrances into your base and having a ranged attack unit standing by. The problem players can have against this strategy is that there are a lot of maps that have multiple openings that the Zerg players can exploit since it takes time to block off the openings, and even then, the speedlings can move back and forth very quickly between all the different openings trying to find or create an opening by spawning some Banelings.
Very fun, very easy, and you’re able to pull it off very early.
Visit my Webpage at: http://www.starcraftiiguide.com/ for more great strategies!
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