Metagame

Buddhist and I played 2's for several hours today. After much deliberation, frustration, experimentation, and innovation, we are proud to offer you the following advice:

don't both 1 gate fast expand into carriers it's not a good idea.

This is a bunch of really obvious stuff that I've alluded to several times in the past, but it's probably the most important thing past basic macro when it comes to actually winning a multiplayer game of SC2.

In SC2, you are either winning, losing, or even. When you're losing, you need to take risks and play well to re-gain an advantage. When you're even, you need to focus on having perfect play while cutting whatever corners you can without losing (getting things 1 supply later than your opponent is a perfect example of this). Both of these can be expressed fairly simply. What to do when you're ahead is a bit more complex.

There are two degrees of winning in SC2. There's 'winning,' which implies map control and the ability to destroy your opponents army before it does too much damage to your base, and then there's 'about to win,' which is when you have an army big enough to march into your opponent's main and wipe out everything. There's a HUGE difference between the two, and learning to recognize this will win you dozens of games, as trying to attack up a ramp when you're 'winning' and not 'about to win' suddenly changes your position to 'losing' when your army dies.

It is far too often that a friend of mine, or teammate, admits defeat long before the battle is actually lost. This is true in every online game I've played.

In the context of Starcraft, tempo and pacing refer to how aggressively players force each other to react to decisions they make. It's important to recognize the tempo of your game and to react accordingly.