It’s time for another Replay Roundup! Since StarCraft 2′s launch, many great, high level games have already been played in various tournaments and competitions, bringing the most out of some of our favorite players. Today, we have a few epic games in store along with shorter ones that show a specific successful strategy being utilized.

To start, here’s a game that’s already been published on our Facebook page last week between Huk and drewbie from the finals of the Gosucoaching tournament. A Protoss versus Terran game on Steppes of War, starting with a “normal” build and progressing into the bizarre when JP, the game’s caster, jokingly whispers Huk to Mothership rush…

Next up, an epic game between Liquid’TheLittleOne and Hasu on Metalopolis, a Terran versus Protoss.

Great skill displayed by both players as they battle constantly throughout this long game that will keep you on your toes!

Our next game for today was chosen for its perfect illustration of the reason Reapers are being nerfed in the upcoming patch. In this match, Marrow, a Swedish Terran player, fights against the infamous Zerg player, IdrA, on Xel’Naga Caverns. Marrow quickly sets up many Barracks with Tech Lab add-ons and proceeds to abuse Reapers to the max!

Our final video of the day presents an amazing display of multitasking leading to a very decisive victory. This Terran versus Zerg match on Metalopolis started with the Zerg’s fast expansion taken out by the aggressive Terran, leading to a mid-game where the Terran’s in the lead but with the Zerg still in the game. Here’s part two, where the amazing conclusion takes place:

Does one really need 260 APM to pull this off? Well, it can’t hurt!

Bashiok, Blizzard’s community manager, has posted on the battle.net forums, discussing a subject that’s on the mind of every StarCraft 2 player: gameplay balance and patches that change it. The thread began with worries that Blizzard is keeping the game in an unbalanced form that will only be addressed by the next expansion, Heart of the Swarm, when it introduces new units and balance changes.

First of all, Bashiok quickly dispels this myth:

Our intent is not to have a game with broken balance in an attempt to sell an expansion. That should go without saying. It makes me sad it isn’t.

Next, he clarifies Blizzard’s approach to patching:

Our intent is also to not apply knee jerk fixes based on the first few weeks as understanding of the game and strategies are still in flux. The game is young, and we don’t feel that it would have been helpful to progressing peoples understanding by throwing in tons of fixes based on flavor-of-the-week (or day, or hour) strats.

We see a lot of variation between the regions. Making a change for how NA players play may be completely ridiculous for how KR players play, and actually mess up a balance there. For instance 10 of their top 20 players are zerg. So that’s one place where we have to be mindful and careful and attack balance issues with great prejudice.

Unlike during the beta, Blizzard can’t afford to patch the game every few days or radically alter components of the game for a test run. “Real” patches are indeed coming, but they will be heavily scrutinized first to make sure the introduced balance changes are worthy:

That said. There are balance changes coming. What everyone was seeing in beta with tons of quick balance changes are because it was in beta and we feel we can get away with throwing out a lot of ‘we think this may help’ type fixes. With a live environment we’re not going to throw stuff out there unless we’re pretty sure. We’ve played. We’ve looked at data. We’ve looked at each region. And then we act. Which isn’t to say we may not be wrong from time to time, but it’s a more measured approach than beta players may be used to or expecting.

There you have it! Balance changes are coming, and they’ll be thought out and tested before we’re exposed to them. Indeed, in mid-September, Blizzard is planning on releasing the first real patch, and they’ve already released a situation report detailing some of the planned changes:

Patch 1.1 will contain a number of improvements including additional mod features, Editor improvements and bug fixes, some custom game improvements, support for NVIDIA’s 3D Vision, and more. We’d also like to share some specific plans for this patch with you.

Balance Changes

We have several balance changes in store. One general change we’re making is that friendly units will no longer provide vision after being killed. Enemy units previously revealed will no longer be targetable. Now let’s break down the additional balance changes we’re implementing.

This changes the way vision works so that units that are killed immediately lose the vision they provided on the field. Previously, killed units would still supply intelligence for a few short seconds, allowing players to jump to the location of the “under attack!” ping and see exactly what had happened.

Maps

We’re going to be adding destructible rocks to the Desert Oasis map to make natural expansions easier to protect. In addition, the center map watchtower area is being narrowed.

Protoss

We have two key changes in mind for the zealot: the build time is being increased from 33 to 38 seconds, and the warpgate cooldown is being increased from 23 to 28 seconds. Zealot rushes are currently too powerful at various skill levels, particularly those that rely on rapidly assaulting an enemy base from nearby “proxy” gateways. We feel the window players have to scout for and fend off this rush is too small. We also want to address the problem of protoss being able to dump minerals a bit too quickly with the combination of warpgates and Chrono Boost.

While this gives victims of proxy gateway rushes a little more breathing room, it also puts Protoss players in danger of getting Zerglings going past their choke point just slightly before the first bouncer Zealot comes out.

The late-game effect that slightly hinders the Protoss’ ability to mass up Zealots quickly is also no doubt a reaction to the following Siege Tank change:

Terran

There are several changes in the works for terrans. Reapers against zerg are stronger than expected. Due to the zealot build time increase, reapers would be a bit problematic in combination with proxy barracks, bunkers, and/or marauders against protoss. Therefore, we have decided to increase the build time of reapers as well from 40 to 45 seconds. Fast reaper + bunker, or fast marine + bunker rushes are problematic against zerg. Although this rush would never outright destroy the zerg player, we feel zerg suffers too much of a disadvantage from either having to cancel the fast expansion, or getting trapped inside the main base for too long, so we are also increasing the bunker build time from 30 to 35 seconds.

Siege tanks in large numbers are performing too well in all matchups. In the mid- to late-game, siege tanks are too dominant against all ground units. We want a small set of light and unarmored ground units to perform better against siege tanks. With this in mind, we’re changing the Siege Mode damage of the siege tank from 50 to 35, +15 vs. armored; to correspond with this, damage upgrades will be changed from +5 to +3, +2 vs. armored. This change reduces the base damage of the siege tank against light and unarmored units, as well as the splash damage.

Siege Tanks will now perform more like their StarCraft 1 Predecessors, dealing less damage to light-armored units like the Zealot, Marine, Zergling, and Hydralisk. A huge change for this unit that the Terran race has come to rely on, Tanks in siege mode will now be significantly less deadly to these units. Hydralisks will need 3 shots instead of 2 to be killed; carapace-upgraded Zerlings will survive the first shot, non-stimmed Marines will as well. Zealots, already capable of taking some tank fire while charging in to the battle, will be able to take one extra hit as well and survive 5 direct shots. This is not the first nerf to the Siege Tank, which has already had its damage lowered from 60 to 50 during the beta.

Siege Tanks will now benefit greatly from the +1 damage upgrade, allowing them to one shot Zerglings regardless of upgrades. A +2 attack Siege Tank will two-shot Hydralisks again, even if the Hydralisk is +2 carapace upgraded itself.

Battlecruisers currently lack good counters from the ground and still perform very well against a wide array of unit types. We’re aware that it is not easy to get battlecruisers out for the cost, but at the same time, it is possible in both 1v1s and team games to create stalemate situations to bring them out. Overall, we feel that battlecruisers are too strong for their cost, and the terran-forced stalemate situations are causing less interesting gameplay. We will be lowering their damage against ground units from 10 to 8.

Zerg

Ultralisk damage is being decreased from 15, +25 vs. armored to 15, +20 vs. armored. This reduction is comparable to the changes being made to the battlecruiser and siege tank. Like the battlecruiser, ultralisks are simply too powerful for the cost, even though they are difficult to muster. Also, in combination with other units, ultralisks are difficult to counter from the ground. The ultralisk building attack (Ram) is being removed because the damage rate is too similar to its normal attack, which will be used against buildings instead. When ultralisks target tightly packed smaller buildings such as supply depots, the Ram attack is actually outputting considerably less overall damage than its normal attack, as Ram only hits a single target.

The Ultralisk, which was highly underused during the beta, has finally been seeing use since the release of the game thanks to the final patches of the beta that have improved the unit’s damage, speed, and have given it a permanent “frenzy” effect along with the ability to break down Sentry Force-Fields. This is has made it quite devastating in some situation, so the current damage reduction definitely makes sense. On the other hand, Ultralisks will now be better than ever for breaking down tight chokes, as their AoE melee attack will be used against buildings as well.

Interesting changes all around, and these are only some of the promised ones to come in the next patch!

In a hilarious and predictable turn of events, that will perhaps prevent Blizzard from releasing these situation reports prematurely in the future, players who had read the report and have noted that Zealot proxy rushes and Siege Tanks are overpowered are abusing those to the max while they still can. Be warned!

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Replay Roundup, where we bring you only the best and most entertaining video replays of high level StarCraft 2 games. Today’s replays are going to be from games played over the last month of phase one of the beta. Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re not great! First up, we have two matches featuring Sen, a Taiwanese player, playing against two well known pro-gamers: Artosis and fan-favorite Liquid’TheLittleOne.

First up, a short game between Sen and Artosis, a Zerg versus Zerg on Lost Temple.

An unorthodox play by one of the Zerg players decisively wins this game, where no clear advantage was had by either player up until that point. Will this strategy be more commonly used when the beta returns?

Next up, another game featuring Sen as Zerg playing against TLO’s Terran on Kulas Ravine.

In this long game, both players display great skill as they struggle to harass each other while taking over their side of the map. Non-stop battles take place all over and unique strategies are employed to produce a great victory!

Lastly, we have a game from the EU versus Asia tournament, cast by the awesome Day[9], and featuring TheLittleOne once more in a Random versus Terran game on Blistering Sands.

Getting Zerg as his race, he proceeds to play the entire match using two units only – producing another epic game, TLO style.

After one long month of hiatus, the StarCraft 2 beta returns in full force. This phase will last for 11 days, until the 19th of July. Here’s the official word:

The second phase of the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty beta test is now underway. We’re delighted to invite you back to the battlefield and hope that you will join us through July 19 for more terran, protoss, and zerg action.

As stated previously, all data from beta phase one has been reset. This includes characters, match history, ladder rankings, and achievements. Beta participants will therefore need to recreate their characters and, if joining matchmaking games, complete a new series of placement matches.

We thank you for all the feedback you provided during phase one and are excited to hear about more of your experiences in phase two. Welcome back to beta, and we’ll see you on Battle.net!

Patch 16 was released along with the restarting of the beta, bringing with it a few relatively minor changes and some more undocumented ones.

GENERAL

Rally points now behave as a move command, instead of an attack move command.
Enabled the ability to manually add a StarCraft II character friend using the player’s character code. Character code is a server-assigned numerical code that is displayed within the Add Friend panel.
Battle.net Achievements & Rewards have been updated.
All Quick Match modes are now available: 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, and Free For All.
All A.I. difficulties are now available for play.
Cooperative matchmaking versus A.I. players is now available as a play mode.
Enabled cross-game social features between World of Warcraft and StarCraft II.

The rally point change is the big news of this section. Previously, units rallied out of production buildings would automatically attack all enemy units in their way, often nullifying themselves immediately because they would meet with larger forces. This would frequently make rallying useless, since each new unit had to be handled anyway. Instead, units will now move to where they’re told to go, ignoring enemy units.

ZERG

Infestor

Frenzy spell removed.
Infested Terran spell added.

Overseer

Infested Terran spell removed.

Ultralisk

Now immune to stuns and mind control.

Continuing the trend from the recent patches, the Ultralisk has received another buff. Along with the speed upgrade and the ability to ignore the Protoss Sentry’s Force Fields, Blizzard is certainly gearing the Ultralisk to be an unstoppable juggernaut – just like its design implies. It will be interesting to see if this latest buff will be enough for this purpose.

A few other undocumented changes have already been spotted in the new phase of the beta, both for the interface and the game itself. We’ve gathered a list of changes:

GENERAL

• All menu sound effects changed
• Many changes to all races sound effects
• Changed graphics settings, removed highest level of shaders
• Engine performenace optimized (not confirmed)
• “Beta” removed from title screen
• New music added
• StarCraft installation directory drops from 10gb to 3.5gb as the patch deletes all previous versions
• Only 2 placement matches are required (down from 5 before and 10 at the start of the beta) A display bug incorrectly shows that only 2 placement matches are required while 5 are needed in effect
• Xel’naga towers now look like eyes on the minimap

GAMEPLAY

• Tabbed browsing through production buildings has been removed. Instead, units are assigned to the most efficient building. Early reports inform about many issues with this.
• Neural Parasite is no longer unlimited, lasts about 12 seconds
• Infested Terrans last 30 seconds (from 20)
• Infested Terran can be cast while the Infestor is burrowed
• Roaches can no longer move under Force Fields while burrowed
• Stalkers can no longer blink over “unpathable” terrain, meaning no more blinks across islands

Time to hit the servers!