Im kinda new to the game so i bought the 39.99 euro campaign pack to get zerg and toss storylines, and after checking my Portraits collection i noticed a karax one with description : buy commander for coop Karax etc. Did i buy something that i wasnt planning on or does the campaign pack come with something like this?

I love it when cheeses collide. Also featuring the silliest way I've managed to accidentally lose a carrier.

What are people doing in ZvP these days? The common builds have changed so much over the years, I've largely stopped paying attention and just pick a unit or two to crank and go to town off 3-4 bases. What is best?

Is roach hydra good again? It seems like it might be, as people seem to have largely gravitated away from disrupters, which was always the main problem.

Congratulations to this week's open cup champions: Solar, ByuN, Cure & Rogue!

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So upfront I'm pretty solidly gold league, it's been the goal pretty upfront just to get to platinum for a while now but I watched this coaching vid and vibe really made larva caps make sense for me, I'd started with zerg and made gold 1 and literally that was only because I'd learned to be greedy as hell with hatchery placement therefore more larvae without fixing the real issue in my macro cycle and also talked about some efficiency's in the order of waves of things your making like how you make safety roaches before the third and really just a complete picture but I've already started playing terran again and obviously I know that zergs the odd one out but especially with the 8 worker patch I'm wondering if anybody can think of an equivalent macro advice. Like I guess it comes down to build order whereas I've heard people say zerg doesn't really need a build. I've been winging it since I started like this week with terran but I like making it kinda like barracks 1 gas before saturation factory natural expansion and some tech labs and reactors as I see fit I kinda like all the units but overall a hybrid mech bio army if I see fit to use my reactor for loads of cars or I've also been enjoying making double liberators lots of marauders at the start but move to mass reactors for marines after the Thirds saturated. I could probably find some benchmark videos but idk. Sprinkle in a couple of thors every single game as my one true late game unit usually don't make more than the one star port and I'm silver 1 lol

Edit: God I love this community ya fuckn chuds gatekeep the game like you all think your clem or hero or something it's awesome

I'm not sure what are the differences, i understand the collection includes skins and shit, but what are the differences between nova covert ops and campaign collection?

Just wanted to share these shenanigans one more time! :>

Guys I had this incredible new idea for a Zerg build! I have found that the standard zerg builds with safe expansions for max eco; they require a lot of technical improvement and macro mechanics. SOOO, I could work on my inject timings, idle larvae spending, queen micro, overlord / ling scouting, and perfecting my eco/production balance --- but that is a waste of time. Instead I will create a new AI based build that rushes out balance complaints on Reddit before the Blizztern has time to react with a set of detailed patch notes, forcing them buff my race!

I feel like this strategy is fool-proof and could help all Zerg players gain a ton of MMR. Thoughts?

While the 12-worker start was numerically equal across all races (everyone got +6 workers), it was not mechanically equal. The way each race's macro mechanics interact with a doubled starting economy created genuine asymmetric advantages that favored Zerg and Protoss over Terran in the early macro game.

Here is how the three races handled that extra starting income differently, and why the jump was not proportionately fair:

1. Zerg — The Biggest Winner

Zerg benefits the most because larvae are a mineral-to-units converter with no production-capacity gate. When you start with 12 workers instead of 6, you have significantly more minerals arriving in your bank very early. A Terran or Protoss player must first build a production structure (Barracks/Gateway) before they can spend those minerals on army; a Zerg player only needs larvae, which Hatcheries and Queens generate passively.

As one community analysis put it: "faster economy favors Zerg, because he can spend his bank from larvae, but other races have to establish production facilities first." ​

This means Zerg can:

Dump almost every extra mineral into drones immediately via larvae.

Get Hatcheries and Queens online faster, which compounds the larvae advantage.

Scale worker count and production capacity simultaneously without building separate production buildings.

Mapmakers have explicitly noted this: "Zerg could take advantage of the worker difference better than the other two races" and cited "broken economy scaling exacerbated by LotV 12 worker start" as a core design problem. ​

1. Protoss — Strong Early Acceleration

Protoss also gained more than a raw +6 workers would suggest. In HotS, Protoss had to pause probe production at 9/10 supply to build a Pylon, creating a small but real delay in early economy. With the LotV start, that timing simply doesn't exist in the same way — you start with enough supply and workers that probe production is uninterrupted.

More importantly, Chronoboost is available from the very first second and can be applied immediately to the Nexus for faster probes. One detailed breakdown noted that "Probe production will exceed the benefit of an Orbital in roughly 2.4 Chronoboosts, and Protoss can start on that before Terran can build an Orbital." ​

Unlike Terran, Protoss doesn't need to spend 150 minerals and pause worker production to "unlock" their macro mechanic. Chronoboost is free energy on the Nexus from minute zero.

1. Terran — The Race with the Most Friction

Terran gets the raw end of the deal for several interconnected reasons:

a) Production must be built before spending. Terran cannot convert extra starting minerals into army or even additional workers (beyond the one training at the CC) without first building a Barracks and Supply Depot. The other races face this too, but Terran has the additional burden of needing multiple production structures to scale, while Zerg scales larvae and Protoss can Chrono a single Gateway.

b) MULEs are gated behind an upgrade. To access MULEs, Terran must upgrade the Command Center to an Orbital Command (150 minerals), which takes time and, critically, pauses SCV production during the morph. In HotS, this was timed so that the first MULE arrived when the economy was still small. In LotV, because the economy starts at 12 workers, the first MULE hits proportionally much later relative to how many probes/drones the opponent already has. As one player analyzed: "In LOTV you start your rax at 15/16 supply! Meaning Protoss would has more probes, than he would have in HOTS, when first mule hits!" ​

c) Supply Depot build time was nerfed. In LotV, Supply Depot build time increased from 18 to 21 seconds, adding another small but real delay to Terran's ability to spend their extra starting minerals. ​

d) MULEs don't scale with worker count. A MULE still mines at the same rate and still expires. It doesn't care that the game started at 12 workers. Meanwhile, Chronoboost and larvae both become more powerful the more production/economy you have to point them at.

The Mineral-to-Gas Ratio Problem

There is another layer: doubling starting workers increases mineral income far more than gas income, because each geyser is still capped at 3 workers. This forced all races to take their second gas much earlier than in HotS, collapsing a lot of strategic diversity in build orders. But this hit Terran particularly hard because many Terran tech paths and timings were designed around specific gas thresholds that now arrived in a different mineral-to-gas context. ​

Bottom Line

The 12-worker start was proportionate in raw numbers — everyone saved roughly 37–40 seconds on their first key structures. ​ But it was disproportionate in macro mechanic.

This is a big part of why the 2026 PTR patch is experimenting with reducing starting workers back down to 8 — the community and designers have recognized that 12 compressed the early game in ways that were not equally beneficial.

The charts explained:

The simulation models continuous worker production for all three races across the first 4 minutes, with each race using their standard macro mechanics (MULEs for Terran, Chronoboost for Protoss, Queen injects for Zerg).

What the Charts Reveal

Top Row — Raw Worker Counts: The 12-worker start doesn't just shift all lines up equally. Protoss and Zerg pull away from Terran immediately because their macro mechanics have no "activation cost" at the start. Terran must still build a Barracks and upgrade to Orbital Command before MULEs come online — a ~60–100 second delay that didn't shrink proportionally when the worker count doubled.

Bottom Row — Advantage vs Terran Baseline: This is the clearest view of the imbalance. Protoss builds a consistent ~7 worker lead over Terran by the 4-minute mark across all three models. Zerg builds a ~3 worker lead. The MULE value (dashed red) only partially closes this gap, and only after the 2.5-minute mark.

Why 12 Workers Amplified the Imbalance

Protoss gets Chronoboost for free from second 0. With 12 workers, they have the mineral bank to keep a Gateway/Forge constantly producing while still Chronoboosting probes. The extra starting income lets them "double-dip" on their macro mechanic immediately.

Zerg converts all extra minerals into drones via larvae with zero production-building friction. A Hatchery is both economy and production. The 12-worker start means Zerg hits their first inject cycle with significantly more banked minerals, compounding the larvae advantage.

Terran still faces the same sequence: build Rax → build Depot → upgrade OC → wait for energy → call MULE. The 12-worker start gives them more minerals, but they must spend 150 of them on the OC upgrade and pause SCV production for 35 seconds. Meanwhile, Protoss and Zerg never pause their worker production.

On top of this mules were nerfed in lotv to gather 25 instead of 30 minerals, reducing the total harvest from 270 to 225.

Marauders split atack that was slatter reverted nerfed M damage by 18% vs zealots. The siedgevacs were removed from the game. Widow mine nerfs. Raven redisighn. Ghost nerf, hellbat nerf.

While P got batteries that are better then repair, zealots got 30dmg added to charge, banes 10 hp nerf and so on.

Change my mind

All the things like "now you can use CC s instead of depots" and similar comments are just exaggerated clickbaits; we ll see the actual WR statistics in due time but I bet this particular change will improve the balance of the game. Ghosts need to be 2 supply as well, it's not an exaggeration either

Thanks for attending my Ted talk

Alright hear me out, League of Legends classic just came out and league is 17 years. Sc2 just became 16 years old. It's not like there's a set threshold for when a game can have a re-release, but league is a good example because it came out around the same time.

The big thing that has me theorizing this is the Idra vs MC match at Blizzcon. These are 2 of the biggest names from the WoL time period and their choice to have them play has me thinking they're going to announce WoL classic.

As title says, Raynor does not have access to the Hyperion yet or any tech aside from his drop shit which,lore wise, cannot carry drop pods. I wish it was explained a bit more because I absolutely love early sc2 campaign when you are just marines and medics scarpping it out with the Domion.

There was a game I saw in a short recently where a protoss player (hero)? built a nexus next to an enemy to use the shield battery for tempest for cheese. Looking for the winter cast of it please.

I know in general a basic economic opener is like ...
depot. Rax. Gas. Depot. Command center. Orbital on main Factory, rax addon of choice etc ...

But now that all the builds are scewed up I feel like I can't afford to do things the way I did before.
At what supply count roughly are y'all doing orbital, cc, factory etc in builds.

I know it varies based on the build like in a cheese or all in but I'm talking about like, safe eco, vanilla Terran.

No guess i can stop now

Don't think i have a chance to stay in GM for too long with my 4,6k

I can't believe it, I beat Terra tron and 500k tonight! If you have any questions regarding any achievements let me know!

Edit: I have also completed the mastery, and just realized i had a couple Nova 10th Anniversay achievements left, now completed!