StarCraft 2 Newbie Guide: Replays

By -

I wrote earlier that I would share tips as I learn more about StarCraft 2.  Last time I wrote about only playing one race until you master it and about plugging the ramp to your base.  In an off-handed way I mentioned replays in my last post on newbie tips.  It's time to expand on that.

Watching StarCraft 2 replays is critical to getting better.  I didn't realize it at first, but it's of the utmost importance.  To get better at anything you need to learn from someone or something with more knowledge and experience than you currently have.  If someone beats you in a game, they did something better than you did and you can learn from them.  This is where replays come in.  Reading StarCraft 2 tips, tricks, and guides is a great place to start.  They're like a StarCraft 2 101 course.  Replays are the advanced courses.

There are two main types of replays worth watching.  Your own games and players at the highest level.

I like to watch my own games right after I finish actually playing them.  That way the game is fresh in my mind, I know what I did, and I have a general idea about what my enemy did.  Whether you win or lose doesn't matter when it comes to watching replays.  What matters is learning something new.

Watch yourself for things you can improve on.  I noticed in my replays that I tend to have an abundance of minerals in the late game, but no way to spend them quickly.  I also tend to lack vespene gas so I can't build enough advanced units to use my minerals up.

I'm tweaking my play style accordingly.  I build more Assimilators and build them earlier to help with the vespene production.  I build more gateways overall so I can pump out a lot of low level units with my extra minerals.

I guarantee I wouldn't have spotted these things if I didn't take time to watch my own replays.

The other thing about watching my own games is seeing when my enemy or I make stupid decisions with our units.  It becomes apparent in the replay because I get to look at all of the units on the entire map.  I often see times when I could have won if I pushed back at the right time.  I see the opposite too, when the enemy could have won if he pushed me instead of building up more units.  I'm learning, through replays, how to better manage my units.

Watching professional level replays is important because it provides a long term goal.  Not only are some of the matches amazing to watch, but they provide high end strategies that I can aim to learn.  I see things the pros do that I'm not even close to yet, but it still helps me learn about the game.

My brother is doing an entire post series about professional level matches, I suggest you watch the replays he highlights.  One of my favorite players and strategists is Day[9].  He does fantastic daily webcasts Sunday through Thursday on his Ustream.  My favorite webcast of his is this one about improving silver and gold level play.  It's a good place to start if you're looking for some tips that apply to new players.  Another great resource for replays is HDstarcraft's YouTube channel.

The more replays you watch the better your gameplay is going to be.  It's as simple as that.


This replay is a great place to start

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest Board Gaming

By -
Image
Besides video games I also regularly play board games when I'm hanging out with people face to face.  My brother, my wife, and I end up playing a lot of 3 player board games, but sometimes we get other players involved too. I realized I haven't talked much about what I've been playing in the world of board games, so here goes: Ticket to Ride - We own 3 different base versions of Ticket to Ride, 2 expansion sets, and an extra map set.  We love this game.  This is the game that gets the most overall table time when I'm playing board games with friends.  It's super accessible but still holds fun for people who have been playing the game for a long time.  I recommend this as a great beginner board game for anyone. Masquerade - A hidden role game where roles are constantly switching hands.  You're limited in actions on your turn and can only take one action.  This means that a lot of the time you're not entirely sure what role you currently ...
Read more

S2E22 - E3 2017 - “Who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur?!”

By -
E3 Hype! E3 2017. Not comprehensive. Not VGNN.  Only talking about things we think are interesting enough to talk about.  You have video game news sites for the rest :) We’re talking about Press Conferences, if more news comes out throughout the rest of the week it won’t be here because we’re recording on Tuesday night! http://e3recap.com/ has been my friend Overall trends Esports being forced onto games that aren’t even out yet “Influencers” being put front and center BJ: torn on the current “influencer” boom. Feels like a bubble that’s totally disingenuous Shorter press conferences with less big game announcements Really hard to tell what is actually exclusive Microsoft “Console Launch Exclusive” Most of these press conferences would have been better pre-recorded as just a series of trailers instead of having a stage show, honestly. Updates on games we already knew existed.  This is what we get for so many years of announcing g...
Read more

What is Blaugust? 2023 Edition

By -
Image
I jumped right into the previous post without actually explaining Blaugust.  So... what is it?  Blaugust is an excuse to get people blogging... in August.  Hence, Blaugust! I'm not the best person to pitch it, but Blaugust is put on by a long time friend of mine, Belghast.  Here's what he had to say about Blaugust for the 2023 kickoff: Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focused on blogging and other serialized content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. For years blogging has been dwindling, and in part, Blaugust was my attempt and reversing that course by compiling a bunch of veteran bloggers in one place and making it super easy to ask questions and get answers. The idea is that this festival of blogging can help reignite dwindling fires for the next year and give folks a sense of kinship as a...
Read more