Thrasher, only for this excellent and extraordinary post you deserve to be called Poster of the Month.
I liked it very much.
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So that’s what it takes to recognize the power of cyclones, you just have to spend a lot of time playing protoss first huh.
Congratulations, you’ve seen the light Playa 
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Update. On day 4 or 5, atm, and I feel fairly comfortable and set in my ways in all the matchups. Seems like it has taken a day and some change for each matchup.
T vs T: I’ve beaten a 4500 today, on EU. Since making the switch to hellbats and not making any bio beyond the first 2 reapers, things have gone pretty smoothly. I’m a fan of 2 cyclones and 1 raven.
I’ve learned to expand on the low ground in T vs T. I feel my opening is pretty solid. I proxy reaper, with 1 rax. I take the path that they would take if they were to proxy me (at least that’s my understanding), so I’m already scouting if they’re proxying me by simply proxying in this manner.
Then I scv scout. I poke in with 1 reaper, see what’s up and maybe kill a scv. Then I just go home and float my rax to scout after making the second reaper. You can block their addons or delay their expansion with the rax. Very BW-esque. I seem to get ahead every game this way and end up with far more information. No problems that I know of in T vs T atm.
T vs Z: mines are too good. Like, it completely makes going mutas insane; you have to always have your eyes on your mutas and have hawk eyes… or else a cheap unit is going to destroy 2k worth of resources… and put an end to that threat. It just doesn’t seem practical.
Much like BW, it seems to be a game of stopping counter attacks and trying to force them into direct engagements. I’ve beaten swarm host nydus a few times, but I’ve lost one game to it. It made me think I need to mass speed banshees vs it, as I already have the starports and surely would be more useful than the vikings in that scenario.
I’m going proxy reaper, making 2, and then floating my rax to one of the possible third expansion locations (sometimes I just make the rax directly there). Then I eng bay block the other third location. Then I rally some mines. I end up placing a mine at each location, while my armory completes. Thus… they can’t even take a natural third unless they move a spore in position. Seems kinda lol/trolly/abusive but good at this level.
Tanks, mines, thors, libs, 2 banshees, with BCs added in. Seems fairly good. Just have to make more planetaries and stop only making orbitals, for the most part. I feel solid enough, already.
T vs P: I’ve had to reevaluate things. The mass cyclones did stop working for me. I tried some more all-in’ish version, but I still kept getting into situations where Toss would max and get carriers.
I’ve revamped my play today with a seemingly good open, upon early results. Proxy reaper, eng bay block, into making marauders at the proxy, while I make cyclones at home. I also go starport before expansion. I rally a medivac and cyclones, while expanding.
So you end up with an attack of 4-5 marauders with concusive shells, a medviac, and a few cyclones. Then, I just go into bio + cyclones. Keep making cyclones until it seems like there is no point. Start the viking harass and kinda play a normalish macro game from there.
I like this style, because it seems like it would be best vs what I lost to the most. The 4 gate blink all-ins or just the 4 gate blink, aggressive play, in general. I feel like the guy who is best equipped to attack first takes control of the game. Ie., attacking them before they have blink is optimal.
h ttps://imgur.com/gallery/dLfPsSw
There’s a difference between 1 factory cyclone production and, basically, only making cyclones. Cyclones are absolutely amazing in the early game. You’re probably doing yourself a disservice if you don’t have them. But, once Toss has disruptors and it becomes clear that they can reach the late game, you’d probably like a smoother transition to ghosts and rather just add in tanks or w/e.
I’m not giving up on cyclones. I’ve just realized you need to survive to be able to use them, and disruptors do make it a bit like P vs P. In that matchup, as soon as a guy makes disruptors, you have to make them too, and just tech into carriers, cause… ain’t no one able to attack anyone, otherwise.
Parallels in life and SC 2. Helps to recognize them and act accordingly. In this case, I’d guess you’d make tanks and probably flying tanks, too.
I feel like things are going well. Beyond expectations, honestly, in regards to strats and what not that are troubling me. Seems promising so far. Happy that my T vs Z did a 180 in a day… Welcomed surprise.
I was never the best at T vs T, as I was mostly busy playing P vs T, but I would practice with Gretorp here and there and do fine, and I did do the 30-0 on ladder thing with T vs T, so SC 2 T vs T seems similar enough, most games, that it should be easy to get a GM level’ish fairly soon. Oh, I also went something like a million and 0 vs Avilo in T vs T, in BW. Played it vs him every day for a year or more (never lost a game)… so if he can win in SC 2, why not me, ah?
I do feel like playing Terran has helped me confirm that the best way for Toss to open is dts. That was my follow up to proxy gate, fast expand, every game in HotS. It was “goated,” but I struggled to find any where close to that success in LotV. I think I figured it out, though, before I switched to Terran.
Playing as Terran now will only help me with my dt ways going forward. I feel like Terran should probably win all games that don’t involve dts. But, hey… that’s an early impression. They should probably win all of those games, too 
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Gotta love the cognitive dissonance of protoss players… Liberators are the best unit in sc2 next to infestors… Spends all his gas on cyclones. Widow mines are what disruptors wish they were… spends all his gas on cyclones. I want you to rebind liberator siege to R and make R a hotkey for rapid fire.
Good, you see against which race you are starting to hit a wall
We’ll see how strong that wall is. The main thing is, simply developing a hotkey system. I use all 10 hotkeys before 5 minutes with Toss. Hotkeying a bunch of different types of units is the only way I know of playing, but you still have to develop a system and figure out what key goes to what and what not. By the time I have that situated, I’d imagine it should be easy enough.
When I watch Terran’s play, they’re really just f2’ing around like they’re playing as Zerg in HotS. It’s really disgusting to watch, and it’s probably part of why they think T vs P is so hard. That’s not the recipe for having a good/easy time.
I have siege for lib as R. I’m not going to use rapid fire. I’m not that much of a try hard. Plus, it shouldn’t even be allowed to begin with. Clown world stuff. I believe in purity and remaining as pristine as long as possible, whether psychopaths want to play make believe or not.
That is another thing, though. I just added some hotkey alternatives to sieging with tanks this morning. I’ve been using “o” to siege all this time, because that’s what is in BW. The other day I made zero my unsiege. It’s all bad. So, I’m trying r for siege and t for unsiege.
I haven’t actually tried the new hotkeys yet, but hopefully it makes life a bit easier. Zero for unsiege totally wasn’t the play.
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I use a hotkey alternative that is somewhat hard for the muscle-memory. The key most accessible in the whole game is Tab. I use Tab (as alternative, not replacing) for the most basic and repetitive actions: Blink, Shade, Storm, Nova, Prismatic Alignment, Guardian Shield, Revelation and even for building fast (Build Basic Building, Build Cannon).
Once you form the muscle-memory this hotkey trick (on top of the other hotkeys) is amazing.
Only danger and thing to be aware of is to know in every moment which units are selected (another reason for using hotkeys).
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That’s kinda interesting, because I actually don’t use tab for anything; I really don’t use tab at all, even for switching between units to micro. Well, okay… when I need to find a unit and I’m maxed, I guess I’ll usually tab instead of clicking on the 2 number in the wireframe. Well, at least some amount of the time I use tab then. But, regardless, I use tab less than anyone. I just don’t like using the tab key to begin with.
I don’t like using “big keys.” Like I use space bar for stop. I only use the bigger keys for things I’d do the least. It feels awful to use the space bar for instance.
I use the alt key as an alternative to select idle workers, so I can use control + alt to select them all. That’s about the extent of my frequent big key usage. I do think that is a goated… combo, though.
What always surprises me is how I never hear anyone talk about using select all army as the tilde. It’s such an obvious switch, in my mind. It really floors me that it doesn’t appear to exist for anyone else. It just makes me wonder how much thought people really put into anything.
Btw, I had to switch sieging tanks to T and unsiege to R. For some reason, my brain 100% associates T with sieging, not unsieging. T stands for tank and tank stands for owning stuff in siege mode. Duh. I’m so dumb sometimes. 
Oh sorry, my terrible mistake: Not Tab, but SpaceBar. Tab is fine as is and i do not touch it.
Sorry for the confusion.
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That’s even kinda weirder to me. Like I said, I use space bar for stop, given it’s the command I use the least. It feels so far away, like another galaxy. And then pushing it feels weird/bad. It’s like dipping your hand into some goo. Distracting.
On a better note, this is when you know you’re true masters of the game, when you can talk about the finer intricacies and nuances of hotkey assignments. There’s nothing left to talk about. Done already mastered it all. No grey areas anywhere else.
Shout out to us. Cheers to us. Shame on the rest.
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I agree, one needs to nearly rewire the brain/hands on the way he plays the game, it’s like breaking the elbow and trying to move it on the perpendicular plan.
I forgot to mention also that Space also starts Chrono and Graviton.
I know that it seems weird at first but once one has created the muscle-memory all running around the keyboard for pressing the specific key is eliminated.
All one needs to know is what units are selected at the moment and based on spell priority use Space or Tab+Space or Tab+Tab+Space.
As i said you ought to know what units are selected.
I have the Control-Group 4 that has 4-5 HT and 5-6 Disruptors.
Usually the 4-Space results in Storm and 4-Tab-Space results in Nova being fired.
Now imagine that in the confusion of the battle all your HT are dead (and you are not aware): the presing 4-Space instead of storming would result in…firing the Disruptors.
No wonder you guys can’t control warp prism ht…
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What’s wrong with optimizing the use of hotkeys and reducing the number of places (sometimes on the other part of the keyboard) the fingers have to go and press a specific key?
I am not imposing my way of playing to anybody, just sharing it. Maybe someone would try? I am happy with how it works for me.
WP micro is exclusive and no optimization is necessary, it simply takes all your full attention (you can’t build a Pylon at your base while microing the WP).
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We can control anything we put our minds to. But, we can’t will the HT into being more than a garbage can. Yesterday, a guy actually tried to use storm vs my mass cyclones. Even the unit with no HP was like omg… I didn’t know hallucinated HT could use hallucinated storms. Nope, guess it was real. Just that bad.
Guy tried to put a scratch on one of my cyclones. I almost had to get my magnifying glass out to see the damage. Don’t be trying to key my SC 2 hot rods. Control yourselves templar users.
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Unfortunately some of our brothers are just…masochistic. You as a veteran Protoss player should have educated that foolish protoss on the futility of killing Motherships with Sentries, Ultralisks with Storm and …Cyclones with …HT.
Just like you are a protoss (in spirit) and just playing terran, i suspect your “protoss” opponent was just a terran offracing.
No other explanation for that enormity…
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Playas portrait is a high templar…
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I’m so not into “nerd stuff/lore” that I didn’t even know that, haha. I heard it was Tassadar before, but no idea who that is/was, still.
Thanks for ruining my day Thrasher. All this time, I’ve thought a high templar looked cool? Wow… I guess you can look good on the outside but be HORRIBLE on the inside or at least at helping your own people win games.
This is like the opposite of Shallow Hal. Please judge my portrait by the outside, cause inside…
Look at me promoting templars. Talking out of both sides of mouth. Bad guy confirmed. Feels bad guy.
Edit: I’m like the dark templar guy, though, too… so saved. Figured. Dark templars are cool. High templar lame, even if same dude or w/e. I can sleep at night now.
Well Protoss is favored so his advantage would be going in reverse. So not only would he be losing the advantage, but going to a disadvantaged state. I will be shocked if he gets into masters 3. Other races are not like apetoss where having room temperature IQ is enough to get into GM.
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