2nd Starcraft

Here are some common mistakes people make in 1-on-1 games in the SC2 bronze and silver leagues. Players in higher leagues probably don’t make these mistakes as frequently:

General:

• Relying too heavily on one strategy/rush. Many players play the same way every game with a race. Not only will this get incredibly boring over time, it is not a good way to improve your game. There are tons of players who focus solely on doing a MMM attack, even if their opponent is well-prepared for it.

• Heavily building marines/hydralisks/stalkers. While these are good overall troops and are especially good against air attacks, they’ll get hammered against an opponent who focuses on a land-on-land attack. If your opponent is mass producing marines and you are producing marauders, it’s going to be an easy win for you.

• Forgetting to upgrade. In mid-to-late game, the winner of the battle may just be who upgraded more.

• Expanding too slowly. While you do not want to expand too quickly and leave yourself vulnerable, some players (especially bronze players) want to turtle, tech up, and build a ton of defenses for their sole base and expand later. By that time, a good player will have 3 bases and can simply win due to overwhelming firepower and resources.

Terran:

• Neglecting detection. Some Terran players rely too much on the scan from an orbital station to detect their opponents. This can be deadly, especially against a dark templar rush. If you are Terran, scout your opponent properly to see if they are going about a cloaked attack.

• Only using a MMM attack. While marines, marauders, and medivacs are a potent attack, advanced players are ready for this.

Zerg:

• Not utilizing banelings effectively. Proper use of banelings is incredibly tough. Banelings are fairly expensive, especially if your opponent kills them before they detonate. However, banelings are instrumental at piercing an opponent’s defenses as well as combating a MMM attack. In general, advanced zerg players are much better at using banelings than beginner ones.

• Not expanding fast enough. For zerg to win, they will often need to out-resource the opponent. You can’t do this if you turtle.

Protoss:

• Building too many photon cannons. Yes, they are good defenses, but at the end of the day, if you are investing all of your funds into defenses, you will not have a good army and will expand too slowly.Also, like all defenses, your opponent will be able to outrange them at some point.

• Becoming too dependent on the void ray rush. While void rays are good units and a rush can be successful, it is also fairly easily detected and defeated. If you notice your opponent preparing for void rays, change strategy.