Just a short notice to anyone who were signed up for the tournament today (May 12 2013) – there actually wasn’t a tournament today. I removed the countdown from the sidebar and didn’t post a news article, but forgot to remove the tournament from the tournament system. Sadly I have to say that there is no tournament today.

Really sorry to anyone who checked in – I’m amazed that 11 people found their way here without any advertisement whatsoever! Please check the website in the future to look for announcements of future tournaments, though I can’t say when the next one will be as I’ve gotten so much more busy the past few weeks.

- Raziel

• Akilon Wastes
• Bel’shir Vestige LE
• Cloud Kingdom LE
• Daybreak LE
• Neo Planet S LE
• Ohana LE
• Whirlwind LE

All maps are found by searching in the “Custom Games” part of Battle.net!

For this tournament, we will be trying out our new tournament system! You can sign up right now if you want to using the signup link in the post above, and you just have to check in 30 minutes before the tournament starts. If there are any bugs with the system, please let me know in the comments or contact Raziel on irc.quakenet.org!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or message Raziel on reddit. If you need a more immediate response try contacting us on IRC or via the Reddit Battle.net group.

Huge thanks to the guys at SCVRush for casting the tournament – we will definitely be seeing them more in the future! Thanks to everyone who participated and watched the stream, we hope to see you again in 2 weeks!

Date, time:	Sunday, April 14th 2013, 13:00 CEST/noon BST (signups open 30 minutes earlier) Check the countdown timer in the sidebar to the right!
Sign up:	CLICK HERE!
Format:	Single elimination – click here for complete rules EU server, Heart of the Swarm
Map pool:	Akilon Wastes Bel’shir Vestige LE Cloud Kingdom LE Daybreak LE Neo Planet S LE Ohana LE Whirlwind LE All maps are found by searching in the “Custom Games” part of Battle.net!
Prizes:	1st: €25 + reddit gold + gold medal next to your name on /r/starcraft 2nd: €15 + reddit gold + silver medal 3rd/4th: €5 + reddit gold Prizes sponsored by /u/willem, feel free to let him know he is awesome!
Streams:	SCVRush – chat.scvrush.com
Crew:	Raziel (organiser)

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or message Raziel on reddit. If you need a more immediate response try contacting us on IRC or via the Reddit Battle.net group.

This first article will be on how to play defensively – which, if done right, is a very good way to improve. Another way to put it is playing reactively. This is because when you play aggressively, you’re the one controlling the pace of the game, and often you’ll either win or lose depending on how your attack goes. If you’re set on doing a certain aggressive play, there’s little to no room for deviation in your plans depending on what your opponent does. Meanwhile, playing defensively requires you to play reactively because there are many different things you as a defender can lose to.

Let’s start off by grabbing a sheet of paper, opening a new Word document, a notepad text file, whatever suits your needs. Personally, I use Google Drive documents for my StarCraft notes so that I can access them from anywhere, and it’s just a bookmark click away in my web browser, which I usually have open anyway.

Now, write down all the builds you know you can lose to. Include as much key information as possible.

• What buildings does your opponent need to do the attack?
• What units does the attack consist of?
• When does the attack happen?
• How and when do you have to react to defend it?
• How and when do you have to scout it coming, so you can react and defend it?

Try to generalize – for example, a 7gate or an 8gate are going to be fairly similar, so there’s no particular need to write them down seperately.

When writing down these, consider: How much time does it take to prepare for these incoming attacks? If you only need about 30 seconds to prepare – for example by building 3 bunkers, make zerg units or chrono boost an extra round of warpgate units – scouting is not so critical. As long as you scout the attack as the units are moving out from your opponent’s base you should be fine. However, if you need a minute or more to prepare – for example by building an ebay for turrets, build a hydralisk den and some hydralisks or build a robotics facility and an observer – scouting the attack earlier is crucial.

Sometimes you will not be able to scout things in time – either because you made a mistake or your opponent denied your scouting somehow. In these cases, you need to make the difficult decision: Try to guess what your opponent is doing, or try and prepare for all possibilities. There are drawbacks to both. If you guess wrong, you’re obviously going to lose the game, and if you try to prepare for everything, you’re more likely to lose because you’re spreading your resources into different areas, some of which will be useless. It’s also possible that as you fail to scout you prepare for one or several attacks, but instead your opponent is expanding and will pull ahead of you in the macro game.

While playing the game you’ll need to use the process of elimination if you can’t scout things for certain – if you know your opponent has expanded you know he won’t do a 1base push, if you know he’s gone down one tech path you know he can’t afford to also go down the other and so on (but note that even if your opponent techs in one direction, he can still switch tech as soon as your scout is dead, but his attack will be delayed).

These are all considerations you’ll need to take with you in your final game plan. It will never be perfect – watch high level streams and you’ll see them misread their scouting information and lose because of it – but you should work towards making it as good as possible. You’ll have to find a plan that can potentially deal with all possibilities, either by having dedicated scout timings or by taking certain precautions (for example, many Zergs will include a Roach Warren just in case of an early attack, but then the Zerg player might end up making no Roaches). As for the scout timings, try to combine as many as possible – if you’ve written that you need to send in an overlord at 8:30 and one at 9:00 to scout for two different timings, see if you can combine those.

As time goes on, you’ll need to continuously adjust and update your list. As you climb the ladder and your opponents get better, you will find that their attacks will come earlier or hit with more units or better micro, and you’ll need to update your list accordingly. At the same time, as you improve, some attacks will become more trivial to hold, requiring almost no preparation, your macro and micro will improve, so you may find that you can adjust down your reactions or precautions.

Every time you lose to an attack on your list, the first thing you should do is compare the replay to your list.

• Did your opponent have more units than what’s on your list?
• Did your opponent attack earlier than what the list says?
• Did you follow the lists’ preparation as you should?

If the replay correlates with your list and you still lost, you’ll probably need to adjust your own reaction to the attack (preparing earlier, taking more precautions, building more units). If your opponent had more units or attacked earlier, you’ll need to adjust that part of your list and then adjust your reactions accordingly. If the attack came as the list says but you screwed up somehow (getting supply blocked, not attacking with all your units) then you know where the fault lies.

Using a system like this takes the focus away from the actual loss of a game and makes you think more about how you can prevent losing similar games in the future. I hope the system helps you improve, and if you have any questions please leave them in the comments below!

First of all let me apologize for the delay since last tournament – having a stressful full-time job and several commitments in my free time it’s hard to muster up the will to plan and announce these tournaments. If you want to help make these tournaments more regular, please let me know!

For our first Heart of the Swarm community tournament, we’re back on Challonge for this tournament, seeing how people strongly prefer having an actual bracket to look at.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us on IRC or via the Reddit Battle.net group.

By joining the official /r/starcraft group, you can stay up to date with news posts and find other Redditors to chat and play with!

You can find screenshots instructions here on how to join.

1. Click the Groups icon (lower-right corner of the game client to the left of Menu)
2. Click Find
3. Select Reddit
4. Click Join Chat
5. Click Join Group

Reddit groups are available for all regions (if you are in SEA or KR/TW, you will need to search for the group).

We look forward to seeing you ingame!

PS: There is also a Reddit clan, but it is currently reserved for representatives of Reddit, be it tournament officials or players for a showmatch (such as the ones vs D2JSP). The clan is NOT recruiting in any way.

• ESV Cloud Kingdom by ESVMaps
• ESV Ohana LE by ESVMaps
• GSL_Antiga Shipyard by TeamClash
• GSL_Daybreak by TeamClash
• GSL_Entombed Valley by TeamClash
• GSL_Metropolis by TeamClash
• GSL_Whirlwind by TeamClash

All maps are found in the Arcade part of Battle.net!

Huge thanks already to LBNT for coming back from last time to stream this tournament as well, and ZOWIE for sponsoring a MiCO for the first place!

We’re trying out a new tournament system in Excello this time. This will allow people to sign up early and then check in 30 minutes before, a functionality a lot of people have been asking for. Hopefully things work out smooth, if not we’ll simply switch back to good old Challonge next time!

All you need to sign up and play is to register an account on the Excello website, and then add your SC2 in-game nick (including character code!) by clicking your name in the top right corner, add game account and select StarCraft 2.

If anyone’s confused by the Excello website, feel free to drop by our IRC channel and ask someone (preferably me, Raziel :D) for help.

That’s right, we’re bringing them back. If you haven’t heard of the SCRedditEU community tournaments before, they are simple tournaments with where having fun, fame and glory is more important than the prizes. Players of every league are encouraged to participate for fun and the love of the game! Be sure to check out our new tournament guide if you’re curious about how the tournament will work. These tournaments will probably happen every second week if there’s enough interest.

The tournament starts at 13:00 GMT/UTC, 14:00 CET 15:00 EET – check the countdown in the sidebar to the right if you’re unsure what this means for you. Signups open 30 minutes before the tournament starts, so you’ll need to check this website again at that time to sign up. We’ll be using Challonge to generate the brackets – you need an account here in order to participate.