How do I critique my replay?

It is fairly well known that replays are one of the best tools available to you to help in improving your play, but for lower level plays it is sometimes difficult to know exactly what to look for in your replays. The hope in this article is to detail a few of the major areas you should be looking at to try and gain more from your replays.

Supply Count

The supply count is a major area to keep close watch on. In the lower leagues it is very common to become supply blocked and doing this on a regular basis can really take a hit out of your economy, especially in the early game. During the replay just keep one eye on the supply count, especially during times of intense action, it’s all too easy to forget to build depots/pylons/overlords when there are 8 zerglings attacking your mineral line, but keeping on top of your supply is a very easy change for a much stronger economy.

 

Upgrades

Upgrades are a massive advantage and really should not be missed out, simply getting that 1 attack upgrade before your opponent can be a huge bonus and it really is something to pay attention too. That game were you know you should have won but didn’t? that’s because he had better upgrades. In any replay keep an eye on both your own and your opponents upgrades, an early upgrade advantage can often lead to an early win.

In a lot of games it’s also worth deciding how to do your upgrades. Are you going to run with only a single engineering bay or two? And if you only have one do you go attack or armour firstly. This is something that can vary a lot depending on what race you are, what unit composition and also your available resources. If your regularly finding yourself struggling to spend your available resources then throw down a second forge and go double upgrades! This can hook on quite well to the resource point later in this article, too much money? Get more upgrades!

 

Buildings

A common mistake people can make is creating buildings and then forgetting that they built it. How often have you built your armoury, and then 5 minutes later realized “hey, this armoury isn’t doing anything” pay attention to any time wasted not researching/building from a building, you built it for a reason so make sure you use it.

 

Use your race specific abilities

This is mainly focused at Protoss and Zerg players, this one is a mistake I make quite often and feel like hitting myself when I see it on a replay. Pay attention to larva injects & chrono boosts. I notice a few times on replays that I am actively viewing my base and fail to notice that my queens are just chilling out staring at my hatchery not injecting larva. This is something fairly major that can be a bit more difficult to totally resolve (I still struggle with injects) but is defiantly something you should pay attention too, if in your replay your all your nexus (nexuses? Nexi?) are at 200 energy, you’re wasting a lot of potential resources.

Resources

This is one of the biggest failings for most players (myself included); sitting on a huge bank of resources during early to mid-game. Watch your replays and ignore everything onscreen except that resource count in the top right, if you start seeing 1000 minerals before you’re at 200/200 supply, you really need to spend that now. If your Terran build more barracks/factories, more gateways for Protoss, and some macro hatches for Zerg players.

This is something that happens from your build and timings not being as tight as the professionals, but that’s ok, just try and think what you could be doing with that money. Look at your production and resource income and think “could I be building an expansion? Do I need more SCVs? Or should I just build more barracks for marines?” and keep that moment in mind so that your next game when you see that 1000 minerals you can think “yeah! I need to build 3 more barracks right now” Simple moments like that will really help you tighten up your build and really improve your play.

Timings

This is going to be a very basic comment on timings, I do not mean anything super specific like “you didn’t get your gas at exactly 6 minutes, so that’s going to push your upgrades back and you won’t survive the 9 minute push” I’m going to talk much simpler

When watching your replays look at what you have upgrading when you move out. What you want to avoid is moving out and engaging the enemy when your combat shields has 20 seconds left, equally you don’t want your zealots standing on your ramp partying and talking about chicks till the 1/1 upgrade finishes then moving out. The idea timing is to outside your opponents base ready to attack just as your upgrade finishes, things like this can easily be forgotten about in the heat of the moment, so anytime you’re ready to move out, just take a second and check your upgrade timings.

Panic & Overreaction

This can be another big problem that can cost games but can be very easy to spot in a replay. Picture the scene, your macro’ing up in your base when 6 zerglings attack, the important thing to do is to properly assess the threat and react accordingly. It’s all too common that when 6 lings attack you will spam 10 marines, 4 hellions, 2 bunkers and a banshee. All to clear up 6 zerglings. Moments like that can cost you the game and it’s important to balance the risk and the appropriate response.

Problems like this can seem almost ridiculous when watched in a replay because that fear is removed, and you can see that those 6 zerglings are not the herald of the Zerg armada at your door, and are in fact just 6 zerglings. So that’s another important thing to keep a note of when watching your replays

I hope this article has shed a little bit of light on things you can be looking for in your replays, and should lead you towards some really simple changes to improve your play.

Azmara