I think that it is time for me to reveal my secrets. (lol who am I kidding everyone already knows) I will be showing you guys good strats to use for wins.

Strat#1 The classic stalker opening allows for a good counter to duskwings by suprise blinking on them and getting some dmg/kill. With this strat I recommend being confident with stalker micro because if you lose too many stalkers in engagements you have no presence early in the game.
If you see openers like vulture/phoenix you can get an os or two to stun/spread creep. I feel this strat really starts to dominate at about 10 mins when not everyone has picked there merc and lancers do alot against sharpshooters/marauders.

Strat#2 Now we have the reaper opener which I use alot for scrims/harder games. With this strat it is important to not lose your reapers early, especially with the shop upgrades. Right at 6:00 you want to upgrade to sniper (rains genius stroke) and spend the rest of the money you get on the three range sniper upgrades also buy the range stim thing. (I know it adds dmg too but whatever). I also stop spawning marines and mass but that is just a preference. After this you want to buy a medi-babe and a overseer. At 8:00 you should bring out your snipers and be dominating and getting alot of feed which should make the next overseer and stun upgrade be able to obtain in less than a minute.
Now its really up to you I normally get 6+ damage upgrades and merc spawn then counter. Anything I need to, I sometimes get ravens if I see that brutas are doing alot against me and sometimes I go strait for queen.

Strat#3 Another strat I love to use is mutalisk I feel that this is one that many do not use because scouts seem a better option at most points of the game. The main reason I like mutalisk is because it makes for a much more faster paced game. Mutalisk creates a good support to your allies army and if upgraded enough can take out an odin with a DT or OS without losing much. If you play this strat the way I do I normally open with dusks or some type of elite that you can feed with. You can also start with a DT but it is really up to you. Right when 10 min hits you want to use all your income on muta and the four upgrades inside the building. If you are getting a lot of feed before 10 mins I would recommend buying some upgrades maybe a few attacks and one defense. After this you can modify what works well with your ally/your play style.

Strat#4 Now this is the biggest/easy pub stomp strat I have seen it is called HKS and medi. Personally this strat is so stupid I dont even want to start. OK it is litterly buy HKS and a medi early game then level hks and snipers bam you win easy. In scrims this strat is less seen since people dont feed it like pubs do. Micro tip: press the heal button on the hks right before you lift since they can heal in medi.

I typed this quickly please feel free to catch any typos/errors.
I will be adding more strategys hope you liked it

Stalkers are a strong start in my opinion. One of my favorite scrim strats. Normally I go 7 minute gols or 6 minute snipers to counter otherwise youre going to be losing that fight until at least 12-15 minute mark. For stalkers your first buy should be blink then one attack upgrade prior to going stalker lancer (possible to do even in a scrim). Also go to settings and change it so you only see damaged units making blink micro easier and more effective. After 8 attack upgrades start countering what is out there. DT and Festor are both strong combos to go with your lancers. DT gives you the option to switch over to melee late game. Festor with lancers and blink rines late game is also a strong combo.

I noticed you go surprise queen a lot. Why not just bring festor out and add him to your mix of units/elites? Even a level 1 festor can really add a lot of friction with fungals.

I normally like suprise queen because it makes it very hard to counter infact sometimes ends the game because of that reason.

I would not recommend the +1 up because I feel the range upgrades are alot more important to get out asap.

Agreed regarding stalker openings. Lancer is definitely more of an early-midgame merc though, since its scaling isn't great lategame - basically every ranged merc outscales it. Often I end up switching to warps or maraiders at SD as a result. Also, I tend to skip the early +1 attack as well in favor of the training upgrades or getting a festor/DT/HT/medi at 10 minutes.

Surprise [insert hero here] is so powerful if your opponents don't see it coming. If I'm solo vs a premade in a pub, sometimes I'll just save as much money as I can early and get a surprise max level hero at 20 minutes. Doesn't really matter if you "fall behind" - if they both went some standard elites+merc build, they're usually screwed

is

asd

Whoever wrote this post sounds like a hue tool. Also vulture strat is super old

Mac op trolling.

Rain basically always does your vulture strategy is what he's saying.

I'm a fan of the +1 attack prior to upgrading to stalker lancer. Others are a fan of getting an armor upgrade. I think the bang for the buck you get equals out either way on all the options just depends on play style/preference. The big chance to get ahead comes from that point you bring out the stalker to when your opponents counter, which is why I am a fan of the 7 minute Gol strategy (or 6 minute snipers) when people start lancers or brutas because it minimizes that window of opportunity drastically. You're next big chance to get away is when you start bringing out elites/heroes to counter whats out on the field. I've found dt/fest/mothership to be some of the best options though Ice was a big player for lancer/tass/OS and wrecked people with it.

Interesting about the scaling that you mentioned akash. I've never noticed that but now that younmention it I can totally see it.

We used to have a really long discussion on this in my old strategy guide post I made a while back but somehow it all got deleted :/

chinga tu madre

abcdefg

The real history behind the vulture build: Rain got the vultures from watchin me wreck with them, I watched Rageypoo wreck with them, Rageypoo was made aware of the new units, aka Vultures, after Relic was introduced to the idea of vultures via Microjackson. Microjackson had the idea of vultures in a dream Fall of 2003 where the origin of this supreme unit was born then mentioned to Relic. Relic then added them to MA January 2004, I know it sounds silly because SC2 didn't exist then, but he made it on an alternate programming medium (100% based off of Microjackson's dream model of "VULTURES") Then later released them to Crayon when he designed Marine Arena in 2010, after the debut of SC2. At first Crayon realized how Microjackson would use these elites and become the #1 Marine Arena player, so Crayon waited until the 11th major update of the arcade game Marine Arena to unofficially release the VULTURES. This was in order for Microjackson not to notice them. Microjackson only took 4 years later for him to discover the "VULTURES" after their true release date and he FINALLY claimed them as HIS OWN ORIGINAL STRATEGY of MARINES ARENA. DUN DUN DUN... Awkward yo

I’m sorry you guys were confused I never meant this thread to be me talking about strats I made I meant it as a place for newer players to learn some of the prime strats right now. I originally saw black using vultures and thought wow that splash is insane so I decided to use them one game. After a while people started noticing that I used them a lot and gave me a idea of using infestor with them which I quickly started using. After a while my friends Wolfgang and Gardul told me to learn overseer because they said it was op. After that I was hooked using this strat with lancer a lot. This is around the time I met Rain, Rain was a very good player in my eyes and still is. He showed me this strat with snipers and as you might have guessed I tried it to. If you know me you know I like trying new strats to learn how to counter them. Now a lot of assumptions have been made such as “I think I’m better than Rain” here’s a flat out answer no I do not think I am better then Rain. It is kinda like saying are you better at math then your middle school teacher now that your in college. I hope this resolved this and Rain if your really this mad you can always make your own strat guide.

You could be a story writer made me laugh pretty hard.

Rain is (probably) not mad. He already knows he's elite class so it (probably) doesn't bother him.

Mac is trolling (and a good story teller). True story btw. I heard Relic designed vultures to have a pointier nose though.

Overall good strategies mate. You should try some new ones in scrims to test out your skillz

I was hoping rain was mad. He made me anger because he started sniping me 5 games in a row using smurfs with this rude strategy he so-called invented. I knew it was him because each time he came in with ridiculous smurf names and started the game saying "how to play"

It's true what he said about me copying his vulture strategy, but I only did it against him to troll him but I realize he was the master of this rude strategy. I also realized that it was very boring to go this strategy every game and told rain to quit MA. That day he cried.

After this, I started thinking... How can I pwn rain when he uses this strategy against me without me using the same strategy and have a vulture overseer war.

It is then i realized there was this unit called Phoenix. It suspends vultures in the air, it gives you time to focus attack it. you can watch it explode if you zoom in. I haven't used it on other units but I am 101%sure it volleys vultures.

Sorry for the long post.

My favorite unit is jcalifa feed :P

LOL


To be fair JCalifa did survive longer than you, and had a better score than you at the end

But I hate long games

No I had 9k he had 6k

Hahaha

Nixes work very well on units like tassadar and festor I would argue that nixes do not counter vulture because medi-vac pick up is faster then a chained graviton. (If that makes any sense). Either way its really how you use them I think phoenixes are very underrated and we should see more play as time goes on.

It's not about actually killing the vulture. It's about giving the vulture player a hard time engaging your army and not let it freely feed across the map. It forces the vulture player to be more conservative in engaging your army and at times you can pick vulture or two and actually kill them without needing more than one gravitational beam. It also helps when you use nix eye to see for a moment where the vulture player planted mines so you don't waste your scans. Also think about the investment on nix vs two vultures with shrapnel research and medi.

There are no fail proof counters, only wise ones. At the end of the day it's all about stopping feed and getting fed.

Btw, just because you color code keywords don't make your statement more or less valid.

I made colors to display different heroes idk where you got making it valid or not.

Haydeneliza I didn't know you loved being sniped so much!??! WOW

dont worry i'll snipe you as much as you want bb