Starcraft II: Rush your way out of silver (as Terran)

Shamrock

Shamrock

New member
Recently I've found a way of rushing silver league players to oblivion. I've gone on a 11-win-streak and counting. I should probably mention that despite all that, and my 60% win ratio, I haven't been promoted OUT of silver. That said, I'm enjoying yawning through the competition.

It starts with, basically, two words: Manshee rush.

In silver (couldn't say gold) it's the most workable strategy I've found. I've won 11 games in a row, and I'm not a very dedicated 1v1 player. This strategy was probably done way before me but I'll expand on it:

It starts with your normal build. I go 9 supply depot, 12 barracks, 14 both gas, train SCVs while that happens. Soon as gas is up saturate. It really doesn't matter if you loose out on minerals, you'll catch up. At 100 gas go Factory. You'll need another Supply Depot here (I'm usually at 21/27 or so). As soon as the Factory opens you should be at 200 gas and if you've been training SCVs you should have 300 minerals.

Go to an UNSCOUTABLE location. Placing it somewhere where a casual Overlord strolls by or a careless Scan will do you no good. Build two Starports concurrently. Then tech labs, one SCV back to minerals (saturation should be good now and you should have Orbital Command). Second SCV to a Supply Depot -- use your discretion, but there should be no slows on this rush.

As soon as the tech labs finish, two Banshees. I always manage to mix up timing and build order depending on how many Marines I get out and stuff like that, but if I have 300 gas I'll research Cloak immediately after. If I'm at 200 I'll queue up two more Banshees and wait for more resources before doing Cloak. Either way you'll be more or less fine.

At four banshees send them in. Protoss is the most vulnerable to this. Then Zerg. Terran is pretty good because of Orbital Command, but you can harass SCVs so, so well. Don't risk Banshees. Run them back if you need to. So far I haven't lost a game like this.

If you need help let me know. Right now I'm mentally and visually impaired so this might be something stupid. I'll check tomorrow morning, once I've slept.
 
for some odd reason i rarely get to do this.when i do this against terran they just run their marines up and as soon as they are all bundled up they scan me.i don't know if zerg detect cloak early game but it never works against them because they always see the cloak banshees,same for protoss,they have a bunch of stalkers and zealots and they just run up to me and start pounding away.
 
Hmm, well I've managed to do it with great success. Even when people rush me I usually have 2 banshees out by then, and micro'd (with SCVs repairing them) they can ward off almost any rushes. The problem is, once you've been scouted, you have to move out. So you don't build it right near your ramp. If there's a blocked of expansion on the map I'd build it there, or often in a corner where you're not likely to be scanned.

Against Zerg you want to have it as far away from their base as possible so that an Overlord won't see it. If you can get 4 out and attack you'll minimally get some great harass in, and because it's so mineral friendly, you'll be able to expand and get several barracks out and eventually switch to Battlecruisers. Up at 12 consecutive wins now, going to see how far I can go with it.

Those 12 wins include times where it was countered but because of the starports with tech labs it becomes easy to go heavy tech.
 
This can be very effective, although it does leave you vulnerable to early pressure. Also, once banshees are scouted, they are easy to counter with Turrets/Cannons/Mutas/Vikings/Thors. I would also not want to use it against Protoss, as the cloaked observer can be a total nightmare.

I like to go air against Terran because of Siege Tanks, but I accompany them with Vikings and then move to Battlecruisers later. Often this causes your opponent to go crazy on AA defence, at which point a mob of Marines and Marauders can be devastating.

Having said all that, you're the one living it up in gold while I'm stuck in Bronze :p
 
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I think done right it can be effective in almost all situations. After 15 consecutive wins I was put up against a Platinum player who countered it very well and beat me. Figured I'd put that in :P
 
I usually use battlecruisers as a last resort.if i can't get into my opponents base (this has happened many times) i take 10 fully upgraded battle cruisers straight to their expansions without repairs.even with their vikings and missile turrets i never lose one and this is after taking out 4 expansions.
 
DCBloodHound said:
I usually use battlecruisers as a last resort.if i can't get into my opponents base (this has happened many times) i take 10 fully upgraded battle cruisers straight to their expansions without repairs.even with their vikings and missile turrets i never lose one and this is after taking out 4 expansions.
Click to expand...

I used to love Battlecruisers, until I realized how easy it is for vikings to kite them :(

Still, Vikings and Marines is one of my favourite combos.
 
Don't let that fool you. The 6th loss doesn't set you back very much. You'll get upgraded at that rate, and it's also very likely that you get upgraded with a 50% win ratio since anything better is near impossible. If you keep up your wins and keep getting points (also the points from winning are far greater than the points from losing) it'll build up to awesomeness.
 
Hey Shamrock,

So I've always struggled against Terran, as Terran myself. However, I recently started amassing Vikings, and I have won 9 out of my last 10 games. This counters an early air push from Banshees nicely, and it is also dynamic enough to fly out and harass and prevent expansions. Three upgraded Starports combined allows you to pump out 6 in less than a minute and they are fairly powerful with damage and armour upgrades.

I haven't tried it against P or Z as I have already established pretty solid strats against them.
 
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i have an unbeatable TvT stat.:D

it also works on rare occasions against protoss but 0% against zerg.

here is what you do and remember to do it as fast as possible

supply depot
barracks,extractor at same time
supply depot
reactor barracks add on,another barracks at the same time
reactor for new barracks and then a supply depot at same time
as soon as the first barracks has it's add on keep pumping out marines and do the same with the other one once it's done.
hotkey both barracks so you can build more when you send your first wave
as soon as you have 12 marines send them in and back them up with more marines so the enemy can't rebuild.



it breaks thru all defenses unless the enemy has like 4 siege tanks or 3 bunkers.
remember to constantly build scv's

it doesn't work against zerg cause they can build units too fast.i havn't fully tested it against protoss though.
 
Tinman said:
Hey Shamrock,

So I've always struggled against Terran, as Terran myself. However, I recently started amassing Vikings, and I have won 9 out of my last 10 games. This counters an early air push from Banshees nicely, and it is also dynamic enough to fly out and harass and prevent expansions. Three upgraded Starports combined allows you to pump out 6 in less than a minute and they are fairly powerful with damage an armour upgrades.

I haven't tried it against P or Z as I have already established pretty solid strats against them.
Click to expand...

Hey Tinman,
Mirror match ups are always hard. You could try DCBloodHound's method, never used it before. My strategy in TvT though goes something like this:
Standard Supply Depot and Barracks timing, at 14 get both gas and saturate, go for four more barracks, two tech lab, two reactor, pump out units constantly -- this is generic MM. Get two Factories up as soon as possible, and an Armory. Upgrade Vehicle plating and build two Thors. Once the two Thors are out you'll have such strong heavy tech that you should dominate, and with two Factories and Four Racks you can rebuild fast enough to defend.

For this strategy I usually go for an early expo -- 15 or 20, but you need to scout and see if he's rushing. Early Thors with MM is honestly the best TvT strategy I've seen.

As for Vikings, they're becoming increasingly popular, especially against Zerg. Seriously, fly around and take out their Overloards and they will be so screwed. I need to use it a bit more before I can give advice on it though.
 
http://www.gamereplays.org/starcraft2/replays.php?game=33&show=details&id=170389

here is the replay for my strategy,i bet some people can do it better.

the reason it doesn't work against zerg is because before you even have your first 2 marines out they will already have like 6 zerglings at your ramp.

this strategy is basically the terran zergling rush since you also sacrifice a lot when choose to go for it and if it doesn't work you are screwed unless you could do some damage.
 
Well in Bronze the people don't Fourgate quite as well as they should :P
It's a very workable strategy all the way up to Diamond.
 
So, some high level players have figured out this ridiculous Terran mule abuse tactic. Basically, you get 4 Command Centers out early all with orbital command. You keep them in your base, no need to expand. This allows you to constantly be pumping down mules. It seems that Mules don't saturate mineral fields, so you can get ridiculous income without even having to expand. Also, Mules don't require supplies, which means you can build more units because you don't need as many SCVs.

Some are saying its an exploit and it "breaks the game".

I just beat a Gold Zerg player (I'm bronze, and I'm weakest against Zerg) using this tactic, was awesome. I was able to out macro him with less expansions. I'm pretty sure Blizz will nerf Mules due to this, but give it a try while it works.

Linky - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173703
 
I have to try that...that's a pretty amazing exploit. According to them it only works against Zerg. At the same time, I can't find a way for Blizzard to effectively nerf MULES without screwing Terran over. As it is, Zerg can build workers SO, so fast because all their larvae build at the same time, Protoss can Chrono Boost and just puild Probes, Probes, Probes, meanwhile Terran can just slowly build SCVs one at a time, and the MULE balances that and gives Terran a bit of an edge on their economy.

But I guess we'll see. I'mma try this though :P

EDIT
I've watched the replays and he out-mines a 3 expo Zerg by almost double. That's insane. Going 16-racks with that strategy would be amazing, gonna practice.
 
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