Alright, so, I’ve been playing Starcraft since I was a young lad, but dropped it for many years and never got into it seriously. Well, until recently, that is. I started in Silver 2 and immediately dropped to Bronze 1. That was about two and a half months ago, and I’m currently in Diamond 3.
While I’ve come to find that Bronze to Diamond in around 2.5 months is at least marginally impressive, I wanna keep it going to get to masters by the end of summer. I think I can hit Diamond 2 in no time, but TvT is making that impossible.
See, in TvT I have a ~20-30% win rate. I’ve looked up build orders specifically for TvT, openers, strategy guides, and while I’ve found a scouting guide with proper responses, I’m still pretty much at a loss. It’s by far my worst matchup.
I often go Bio-Tank-Liberator with a Reaper FE and get my third C.C. around 6:00. My default strategy is getting a reaper and marine before a Rax Reactor, immediately get a tech lab on the Fact for tanks, and get a liberator before a tech lab on the Port for a Raven and then to switch with a second rax for Stim/Combat Shield. However, I have been seeing some early aggression with three reapers and two hellions.
Overall, when I have to play TvT, my go-to cheese of 3 rax reaper is out of the window (Some help on TvT cheese or how to pull it off would also be greatly appreciated) and I lose the equivalent of the bloody Somme in WW1 with nobody able to move and tanks sieged opposing one another.
I feel like getting past Diamond 3 is going to be impossible until I figure this out. So any tips or a guide or specific builds would be extraordinarily helpful.
Hello!
I would suggest that you get double raven as it is the current meta of TvT. The Ravens are very strong in early–mid game due to their utility which are Interference Matrix and Turrets which both are very powerful abilities to have in early-midgame TvT. The tank count is low which can be abused with Interference Matrix and also you can add in extra dps with auto turrets. I think your problem is build order efficiency as you have mentioned struggling with 3 reaper 2 hellion aggression. I would recommend doing Reaper FE and getting a cyclone and raven out as fast as possible. The only other solution I can offer is doing double gas openings which are less economic than fast expands yet provide more aggressive opportunities. I recommend using this build order if you want safe economic play that transitions into bio tank.
https://lotv.spawningtool.com/build/96434/
edit: sorry for my horrible grammar and english. It’s midnight right now and I drank too much grape juice.
First of all, getting to Masters by the end of summer is not a realistic goal imo. The gulf at Masters is huge, and diamond is therefore a brick wall you’ll probably be stuck at for perhaps 1000s of games. The learning curve is extremely steep at your level.
I don’t recommend early liberators. Try going for for Raven which are extremely strong in TvT. Nothing wrong with having more Ravens (Interference + Turrent are clutch)
You also might be playing too greedy (for a diamond player who wants to go to master) to be getting your 3rd CC at 6:00. It is probably not something you can afford to do.
No guide/cheese/specific build is going to save you in your quest for moving up the leagues. That’s not how it works with mirror matches to get to masaters. The best you can do is
G1 noob here so you’re best than me for sure, but you didn’t mention a crucial aspect in your post so I will mention it.
When I started sc2 1v1, TvT was my worst MU, now is my best one. Everything was clear for me when I figured out the importance of air superiority. TvT is tank-centric, all is decided by who has the best spots and vision for his/her own tanks. Tanks shoot above their vision, so you need units which spot for them. Infantry is too much fragile against opponent tank fire, so your best option are vikings. Intuitively you can assume that banshee and libs are better in that regard, but the truth is that vikings win air battles against those two, so you need them. If you win the air battle, your opponent is forced to retire. This is also the reason why ravens are OP especially in the early/mid game, that’s when the viking count is still too low and they can shot some IM more safely. So try focusing on winning air battles (but always have ground protection for your tanks) and you should find yourself in a better spot.
Other important aspect: know you’re enemy position always. If the two armies are equal, it’s always a matter of who has the better ground position.
You’ll make it dude