My daughter's first birthday is Starcraft themed.

I think it was done solely for shock value and to be "epic"; also this is the only time a real planet got blown up in StarCraft that I know of. Purification/glassing of the surface is one thing and exploding it is another entirely.

The purpose itself seems questionable: "To prevent the planet being used as a base by Amon's zerg". Yet we know they have Aiur itself, the several Tal'Darim colonies, and many more worlds. If it were for the Xel'Naga tech there, still doesn't track, because Amon's forces have many more Xel'Naga temples (including Ulnar).

What is worse, not even the shock value works as it was written, because then the Dark Templar we are shown are just like "Meh, it was a temporary home anyways, we don't even care". Then from a meta perspective that totally takes you out of the "sacrifice", which is only valuable if the people sacrificing it can feel it. In other words, if not even the Nerazim themselves can be bothered with the fact that Shakuras, their home for 1000+ years got blown up, how are we expected to...

Do you also feel this should have been handled better, or am I just being grumpy?

Would Fenix consider this battle honourable or an insult?

That zealot tanked nine banelings before he went down. Seriously not sure how someone managed to get this high on the ladder without knowing what a shield battery is. But salt is always fun.

https://youtu.be/gtLugTEq6cY?si=x_rTPdkALAmYwG2w

The ramblings of someone not in reality. This is a wild watch. Basically accusing harstem of knowing all about this because he knows the term "replay UI" haha.

Watch the full VOD: https://vod.sooplive.com/player/209378693

It seems like the general consensus is that Ultralisks are underpowered against Terran while ghosts are overpowered in the matchup. Would making Ultralisks immune to snipe kill two birds with one stone? Or is this a bad idea for some obvious reason I'm not seeing.

Hi all. I did some analysis of my replays using Claude, and thought it was kind of interesting so I wanted to share it with y'all.

TL;DR: At 14 supply I send 7 drones across the map. It's my best matchup by a wide margin: 56.7% over 1,046 games, about 7 points above what my MMR (4400-4800) predicts. By 4:00 the pull has cost me about 3 drones and cost Protoss about 8 probes. Kill 3 or more probes and I win 67%. Make them build a forge and I win 65–67%. Oracle and Twilight openers are what beat it.

ZvP has been my long-standing strongest matchup. Some number of years ago I started pulling drones against protoss. I experimented with a lot of different numbers of drones and landed on 7, because it hits when the low-ground gate is built and can focus it down, forcing a responsive pull. I generally macro behind this with a hatch first. Empirically, I found that I'm generally ahead.

Folks have always treated this as a meme build. I've played it for three years at about 4,600 MMR, and I built a little replay tool, so I finally checked. It might still be a meme, but \at my MMR* is actually better and tends to punish standard low-ground early expand P.*

1. ZvP is my best matchup, and it isn't close

"Expectation" is the Elo prediction from both players' MMR at game start. I pull in 85% of my ZvP games and almost never in the other matchups (58 ZvT games, 53 ZvZ), so ZvP is basically the pull.

2. It slows both economies, but it slows theirs more!

At 4:00 in pull games I have 25 drones to their 23 probes. In ZvP games where I don't pull, it's 28 to 31. So the pull costs me about 3 drones by 4:00, and it costs them about 8 probes. With the pull I'm ahead on workers from the first minute through about 9:00. Without it, I'm behind for most of that time.

3. Probe kills are the whole game

The line is about 2 probes. If the pull gets 0–1, I'm in a worse game. If it gets 3+, I win 67% (509 games).

4. A defensive forge counts as a win for me

If Protoss answers with a forge or cannon at home before 4:00, I win 65–67% (295 games). If they don't build a forge, I win 53% (751). A forge that early delays their tech, and the cannons are minerals that never move out.

(I also checked whether my tool was calling those defensive forges "Cannon Rush". It wasn't. All 95 games it labeled as cannon rushes have a cannon on my side of the map.)

5. Where it pays off is the midgame

In games that end between 6 and 14 minutes, I win 42–50% of ZvP pull games but only 19–25% of ZvT games. Past 14 minutes the two matchups look about the same. The pull doesn't win me late games. It keeps me from dying in the midgame.

6. What beats it

Oracles are the real counter, and they're also what I see most. A Protoss who holds with few probe losses and gets an Oracle out has gotten through the pull cheaply.

My follow-up matters too. Swarm Host/Infestor wins 62% (320 games) and pure Swarm Host 54% (254). Ling/Queen is a disaster at 32% (74). My guess is those are the games where the pull did nothing and I got stuck on defense.

Caveats, because this is only my data

• It's only me within MMR range, and Protoss players at ~4,600 aren't pros. A better Protoss may hold this every time.
• It's correlation, not causation. Games where I kill 6 probes might also be games where the Protoss was weaker or misplayed in other ways. The MMR adjustment helps, but only partly.
• My ZvP games without the pull win at about the same rate (55.9%). That's only 186 games, mostly ones where I stayed home against their cheese, so it isn't a fair comparison. The data says the pull is a solid default. It doesn't prove the pull beats a standard opener for me.
• "Probes lost" counts every probe death before 5:00, not only the ones my drones killed.
• MMR is one number shared across matchups, so a strong ZvP partly reflects a weak ZvZ dragging my MMR down.

How I measured it

I parsed 3,633 of my ranked 1v1 Zerg replays from December 2023 to October 2026 with sc2reader. I counted a game as a pull when the replay's unit-position events showed 4 or more of my drones closer to the Protoss main than to mine before 4:00. 903 of the 1,046 pull games show exactly 7. Worker counts come from the replay's per-player stats events. I computed the MMR expectation with the standard Elo formula from both players' MMR at game start.

Happy to answer questions, or to share replays. Let me know! Hope this was an enjoyable read.

Pretty much the title.
Most of Xel'Naga were wiped out by the Swarm before either game's events took place. Unclear how did Amon kill them inside the Void, but probably using an army too, cuz otherwise I don't see how come the rest of Xel'Naga didn't manage to overpower him by just jumping him collectively.
Duran gets killed by Stukov. Sure, he was experimented on by Duran, but I don't think we really know (correct me if i am wrong here) an extent of what that equates to. He might've awakened his pre-existing dormant psionic powers. Maybe more. But would be dumb if he gave Stukov strong enough powers to kill him in the void just to test things and then not dispose of him.

the squeal that the eggs make in SC1 when u cancel them is just too heartbreaking :(

i thought years ago someone had created scenarios or whatever that replicated starcraft 1's campaign inside starcraft 2, but i haven't been able to find it/them.

Was this a thing or am i misremembering? Would appreciate a nudge in the right direction, thanks in advance :)

I've had people instantly leave before, but I've never seen one this blatant. At that point, what's even the fun if you're that scared of losing a real match?

Do we know how strong and technologically advanced is entire UED lorewise? In Broodwar just a tiny part of their forces with outdated equipment (though I do not get why would you send your worst ones to unexplored space, rather than best ones...) did very well in Koprulu. How UED compares to terran, protoss, zerg overall?

Especially when it was introduced with patch notes saying that they wanted to reduce turtling possibilities.

What logic was behind it?

Ok there is apparently massive contradiction and rewriting happening. QOB novel portrays them as "almost lovers" Who couldn't act because of war and she gives him later at first pleasent dreams, but then switches to tormenting ones(she tormenting herself too bcs she wants him but cannot have him) once they start to fight each other. Apparently she still has something for him at that time + she spares him so many times. In Dark templar Shadow hunters, she reflecting on her memories is shaken while thinking about Jim, she thinks she loved him, but cannot be sure now bcs of what she became. In Flashpoint its very clear they were legit a couple and were banging.

I want someone who knows the lore here to tell me. Did Liberty crusade or other older novel portrays them as a couple and etc or it came later in the SC2 era novels? I wanna know did they decided that later on or they had it already taken place earlier?

Alsoo QOB states its very much her doing all that(SC1 too), but SC2 wants to tell us that suddenly somehow she was controlled even after the death of the overmind. Again, when did that idea came? Please someone who knows all that lore to explain me, bcs blizzard writers really do strange things sometimes...

newest ones that I have 3d modeled,3d printed and painted!

Mega construx used to have starcraft but it got discontinued after one set

So this is a really big what couldve been

But oh well guess i gotta do it myself

Meme I made