but plat is a joke anways. u know when we played 2v2 and made it to plat? but still suck hard? yee plat reaching so hard..

banshee marauder viking is a horrible composition. all 3 are very gas heavy units, so you won't have enough gas to continiusly produce all 3 units to an useable amount. And you will have close to no answer to any ground army. In 1v1 now 4rax is considered an all-in, yes you can transition out of 4rax but not without being economically behind if you don't do sufficient damage. 1 rax FE and 1/1/1 with armory is normal nowdays.


Platinum in 2v2 is very different from platinum in 1v1, platinum in 1v1 takes a long time and skills to achieve, platinum 2v2 pretty much anyone can achieve if they play a couple of rounds.

Mass marines in to mass marines + medivac will always be a legit build.

Plus it's easy and teaches the importance of macro, and later micro. Best terran build eva!!!

Plat 1v1 is pretty easy for anyone who is experienced in RTS. You can easily get to plat with only mechanics. After that I think you have to actually know about the meta and follow proper builds and scout etc.

Pretty sure plat in teams is harder because of cheeses being more powerful and more common.

took me a 2 years to get to top diamond, and I still loose to platinums now and then. Yes you can get to platinum just by 4gating or cannon rushing or do the same build over and over, but it normally won't get you much further than that. There is a big difference in skill level in the platinum league, some guys are really good but just don't play enough to rank up.

My friend is bronze in 1v1, and plat in 2v2. 1v1 rating is everything man, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 doesn't say anything about your skill level.

Yes mass marines is good early on. Way easier to do this in the beginning than many other more complicated strats, and if you just focus on that in the beginning I think you can progress a lot faster. Then when you get good at this you can start mixing in more complicated compositions like the marine marauder medivac widowmine, or marine tank medivac.

Remember that the professional players always have a reasoning behind their army compositions, its not about getting the most units its about getting the right units at the right time in the right amount.

If you really want to practice the art of microing and macroing at the same time get a reaper early on, its a pretty normal opener now-days. You want to play longer games, don't focus on winning 5 minutes into the game every game. Also watch a lot of streams and replays like MLG http://www.twitch.tv/mlgsc2 and ofc the day 9 daily.

If you play any standard build with decent mechanics you should get platinum. After that you actually have to pay attention to the meta.

There's no point learning builds and composition on day 1 because even if you have perfect knowledge of builds and composition you won't be able to execute anything! If you don't learn macro and mechanics you won't get anywhere at all. Micro, composition and builds can wait until you are at least capable of playing. People get to masters with pure marine, and their mechanics are awesome, even if they don't keep up with the meta.

Marine tank medivac is a great composition for learning - it's viable at all skill levels and has practically no skill ceiling.

Yes there are cheesers in plat, but there are in bronze, silver, gold, diamond, masters, and grand masters. All the time you hear about people who run random with cannon + proxy / 10pool / proxy rax or whatever all the way to GM. In every league there is a big skill gap because the game has a huge learning curve - if you watch some korean pro games you probably can see some things they can improve on...

Balance is completely different in team games, it's not random as to where you end up.

Reaper opener is an opener not a strategy, so if you play reaper opener all day every day I think it will be horrible, at least play something standard midgame...

yes, and playing a standard build with decent mechanics take time to learn and master.


Not from day 1 no, then you can build anything. But it is a thing to pay attention to as you develope your skillset.


Yes but it doesn't work at all match-ups, its better to learn marine marauder medivac, seeing as you don't even have to use the tank anymore. I don't even think you can call it a viable option in HoTS


Are you kidding me? in team games everything is 100 times more random and unpredictable, and the 2v2 ladder has close to no players in comparison to 1v1 ladder, and the 2v2 teams are randomly composited of 2 players which can be different skillset. 2v2 ladder is the most random shit ever in history and you can basically end up anywhere depending on who you face and what happens in the 5 placement matches.


Reaper opener is something you do to get early scout and map-control, you only get 1 or 2 of them and its the most standard opener right now for terran. That and the 1rax FE, and it teaches you to micro and macro at the same time pretty good, not a must-do ofc.

But what's the point in a bronze player scouting? If you don't know the meta scouting is basically pointless.

Mechanics is 1000x more important than knowing the meta at all but the highest leagues.

It's only against a hard bot, but it's more just for practicing my build. If anyone's willing to sit down and watch 15 minutes of StarCraft and critique my game play, that would be wonderful.

First of all, why the hell are you taking 2 gases in the beginning when you aren't using any gas at all except for the building of the factory, you end up stacking huge amounts of gas which could have been minerals.

Second of all, why are you getting reactored marines and reactored hellions early if you aren't planning on putting on aggression? you could've just made a regular 1 rax fast expand instead with a bunker and be miles ahead in economy.

3rd of all, very late techlabs and stim/combatshield/concussion. You could have had stim and combatshield done by the 11-12 minute mark and still have more army than you had at that moment.

4th of all, why are you adding an extra factory when you aren't planning on doing anything with it.

5th of all, why no enginering bays? you could have had ebays and 1-1 done before the end of this replay.

Here is a nice BO that gets the same stuff.

Build Order

10 – Supply Depot
12 – Barracks
16 – Marine (up to 3)
17 – Orbital Command
17 – Supply Depot (2)
17 – Refinery
21 – Command Center
24 – @100 Gas, start Factory (then constant hellion production)
25 – Supply Depot (3)
@50 Gas, start Reactor on Barracks (then constant marine production)
@300 mins, start 2 more Barracks
@150 mins, start Engibay
@100% Barracks, start 2 techlabs (then constant marine production)
@100 Gas, start Stimpack research
@100 Gas, start +1 Infantry Attack
@100 Gas, start Combat Shields
@50 Gas, start 2 marauders
@9:45, when Stim, Combat Shields, and +1 attack finish, attack with around 26 marines, 2 marauders, and 7 hellions

ok, so you had 8 hellions and 10 marines when you could have had 26 marines, 2 marauders and 7 hellions with stim, combatshield and +1. I knew that you lost 250 resources in units and you get an earlier starport, but still..

Ah, I love complete honesty :P
It's hard getting advice from friends because they keep trying to be all nice and stuff. I'll give that build order a shot.
But I was a little all over the place in that game, I was more concentrating on keep my minerals low, as I seem to have a lot of trouble with that. And the double reactor was incase I lost that push, then I could go into tanks and possibly Vikings if needed, and other gas heavy things. But it proved to be unneeded. I'll get another replay at some stage if you wouldn't mind having a look at another?