Lotus Cobra Diaries

hownottodoyourtwenties:

“We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It’s almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to.”

-Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

-Mallory

hownottodoyourtwenties:

-Mallory

Am I the Only One…

…that thinks that Stimpacked Marines backed up by Medivacs are completely insane? I certainly can’t claim a winning record with the strategy, but it seems like if I make four Barracks, one with a Tech Lab, the other three with a reactor, and two Starports, I can just flat-out overwhelm my opponent, regardless of what he or she happens to be doing.

How to Make a Good Impression

hownottodoyourtwenties:

Times I Mentioned Wanting to Stab People for Stupidity While Having a Casual Kitchen Chat with Fellow Employees at New Gig: 2

Times I Called Something “Queer Balls” While Having a Casual Kitchen Chat With Fellow Employees at New Gig: 1

Times I Said Either “Good morning, “How was your night last night,” or “How are you” While Having a Casual Kitchen Chat with Fellow Employees at New Gig: 0

-Mallory

Don’t we all….

My First Win!

And not just the kind where the other person quits without doing anything. Like, a real win! Like all good beat stories, it’s not terribly interesting (especially considering I’m in the Bronze League, and the match was TvT…let’s be real, guys). However there were two things worth noting that made this first victory particularly sweet:

1) He “gg’d” me while he was making his first push, which I successfully defended.

2) While I was in the middle of defending said first push, he also called me a noob.

From there, I have to believe he went on tilt and started making some pretty light pushes, considering the Stimpacked army I had, backed up by Medivacs, but once he started to slow down and make Banshees and start killing my base, I realized that if I just went all in, I could probably kill all of his structures before he killed all of mine. Lo and behold, it worked.

I then proceeded to lose my next four in a row.

My First Actually Almost Sorta Close Game!

No really! it was! It was a TvT matchup which basically amounted to me eventually having three Barracks (two with a reactor, one with a tech lab) which were making one Marauder and four Marines, and two Starports alternating between making Banshees and Medivacs. I pushed once with about 150 supply, then three more times with 200. Unfortunately, my opponent had a solid defense of Planetary Fortresses and Thors and the Thors just kept coming and finally did me in. However, my mineral count was WAY down throughout a good chunk of the game (well, maybe not “WAY” down, but I certainly didn’t have the same kind of surplus I usually have) and for a super beginner, this certainly felt like my first not unsuccessful outing.

Also the game lasted 1:03. Whoa damn.

Racking up the losses….

…but having a hell of a time doing it! No really. Terran is mad fun! I’m still getting used to the controls, but Marines are no joke, guys. At least at the Bronze level, infinity Marines have been able to successfully stanch more than a few arial onslaughts.

That said, I’m really interested in a defensive strategy. I like the idea behind bunkering up, since I’ll feel safer doing whatever is it I happen to want to be doing, but really, I just need to make more guys and, consequently, throw down more supply depots. Like, way more. Whoa damn.

Here are the facts…

Fact 1- I played about seven games this afternoon, in the Bronze League as Terran. Four I lost flat out, two were byes (the opponent either quit immediately or actually didn’t make a single keystroke), and one was a…rage quit win? I’m not sure how to put it. It was a TvT matchup. I was on a 2 Rax 3 Bunker Fast Expand build I’ve been dorking around with a bit. I’ve looked at a few videos of it, but most of the work I’ve put in with it has been a solo effort [Editor’s note: story of his life]. I like the build because it fits well within the axiom that I’ve been beaten about the dead with of “MAKE MOAR GUYZ.” In any case, my setup was far from ideal, but I had dudes in bunkers, and Marauders to hold down the fort. My opponent rushes me with a small army of marines and marauders, so I take all my SCVs off mining and attack his dudes….which I do successfully. I honestly have no idea how I didn’t just get completely trashed, but there I was with about seven SCVs and two lone Marines who somehow managed to come out on the other side alive. My esteemed opponent quit, and I moved up fifteen spots on the ladder. Of course, had the game continued and were my opponent to just keep making dudes, there’s no way I could have survived a second push. But as it stands, I chalked one up in the win column, which is always kinda fun.

Fact 2- Fact 1 was too long.

Fact 3- I had half a glass of red wine tonight. I cannot handle red wine. At all. We will see how this affects my performance.

New Race

After suffering crushing blow after crushing blow with Protoss, I’ve decided to try my hand at Terran. I know, I said I was going to do that a while back, but the lure of the flexibility of Protoss was too hard to give up. The truth is, my macro isn’t even in the ballpark of being “good” let alone “good enough to play Protoss.” Just for shits and giggles, I decided to play as Terran, on the fly. No build order, no nothin’. I was armed with a minimal knowledge of hotkeys, hardly any idea what units did what, and the belief that more guys = better.

Of course, I got completely ranched.

But that’s not the point! The point is, Terran felt pretty good in my hands. Yes, it was awkward to watch my drones just sit there and actually *build* things, but I at least felt like I had a fighting chance this time, rather than just getting steamrolled over and over.

Now time to, you know, actually learn a build, or whatever.